The Man Who Invented the 26th Dimension 259
StartsWithABang (3485481) writes Based on all the experiments we've ever been able to perform, we're quite certain that our Universe, from the largest scales down to the microscopic, obeys the physical laws of three spatial dimensions (and one time dimension): a four-dimensional spacetime. But that's not the only possibility mathematically. People had experimented with bringing a fifth dimension in to unify General Relativity with Electromagnetism in the past, but that was regarded as a dead-end. Then in the 1970s, an unknown theoretical physicist working on the string model of the strong interactions discovered that by going into the 26th dimension, some incredibly interesting physics emerged, and String Theory was born.
Gotcha covered... (Score:5, Funny)
Here at discount dimension warehouse you can get 27 dimensions for the price of 26. We honor all competitors empirically undemonstrated theory coupons. More dimensions for your money.
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LOL ... fsck it, we're going to 30 dimensions. ;-)
Re:Gotcha covered... (Score:5, Funny)
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Yeah, the problem with 42, is you have to stop off at 34, and as every man knows, all work stops at 34. Physics Porn FTW!
Re:Gotcha covered... (Score:4, Insightful)
26 base 10 = 42 base 6
Re:Gotcha covered... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Gotcha covered... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't listen to him! He sold me a dimension and when I got it home it turned out to be merely a complex vector!
Re:Gotcha covered... (Score:4, Funny)
These dimensions of yours; how big are they? Last time I bought one when I got it home and opened the box I couldn't even see it.
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Oh, and what about the graphic dimensions and hidden dimensions? Just because your working physical-space dimensionality fits in 640K -- at least, if you have a backing store with a few megadimensions to spare -- doesn't mean that you don't need someplace for God to hang out and run things, or dimensions needed for your inner spiritual eye to be able to visualize the projective results of the stuff in the 640K.
Now, for just 2^{640!} dollars, I'd be happy to sell you an expansion space with an extra 400K di
Crazy Parakeet Man (Score:5, Funny)
Not to detract from his contributions to science, but the photo of him in the Medium article makes him look like some sort of Parakeet Wizard. How he stayed sane with 40 parakeets in his house is something I will never understand.
Re:Crazy Parakeet Man (Score:5, Funny)
I'm severely concerned for you if you've ever met any physics PhDs who didn't give off that vibe.
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I work with one, but technically they aren't in academia anymore. Perhaps he didn't give off enough of that vibe.
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LOL, based on how nobody has ever been able to explain WTF String Theory actually claims to tell us or how you'd verify it ... I'm not sure of his 'sanity'. ;-)
String Theory has always been a little dodgy, and there seems to be about 20 different versions of it, most of which seems to not to make sense, even to many physicists.
Re:Crazy Parakeet Man (Score:5, Interesting)
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I mean, it did take some serious blows. But it isn't quite gone yet.
On the other hand, since I have still seen no suggestions of practical ways to test for its existence (only its non-existence), I still have a bit of trouble with the "Theory" part. Last I heard it was only a hypothesis.
Re:Crazy Parakeet Man (Score:5, Insightful)
What she's saying is that there is no known practical test which requires string theory as an explanation -- the other theories are sufficient. That doesn't contradict the idea that there are tests which could disprove string theory.
Consider the claim that a man who stands before you was created just outside your front door 5 minutes ago, fully formed with enough knowledge to communicate and a local accent, etc., but no evidence of any prior existence was created along with him. Your alternative explanation is that he's lying and was born 30 years ago, as his appearance suggests. You could disprove his theory by finding his house with pictures of him growing up -- that's prior evidence of his existence. It's extraordinarily doubtful that you could ever prove his claim, even if it were true -- it's just much more likely by virtue of simplicity that he was born and you can't find evidence of where he grew up prior to 5 minutes ago, because there's certainly no less evidence of that.
It's not enough for a theory to stand up to attempts to disprove it -- that's a necessary but insufficient condition. It also has to explain something, anything, in a way that is either simpler or more complete than other known theories.
Newton's Laws stand up because they are simpler but less complete than theories like relativity. Relativity stands up because it is more complete than Newton's Laws -- there are known situations when Newton's Laws simply give the wrong answer and relativity gives the right one. QM stands up because it explains something that relativity does not, so it's more complete in a different sense. Aristotelian cosmology failed because it was simply wrong. Geocentrism failed not because it was "wrong" (a geocentric frame of reference is a perfectly valid, albeit non-inertial, frame of reference, and you can absolutely make accurate calculations about the universe with Earth defined as its geometric center), but because it was incredibly complicated compared to heliocentrism and provided no discernible scientific benefits. That leads to the question: is string theory like geocentrism, in that it's not strictly disproven but it's an unnecessary pain in the ass?
The request here would be for a situation that String Theory explains, and QM and Relativity either do not explain, or explain inaccurately, or explain in a more complicated fashion. It's useless until it provides one of those things, other than the joy of pure mathematics. Science does not state "all proposed theories are true until disproven" -- rather, it says "don't assume a proposed theory is true until you fail to either disprove it, or come up with an easier answer".
I'm not personally in a good position to evaluate the merits of string theory anymore, and neither is anybody with merely the knowledge in that wikipedia article (though it helps). You should note, though, that the wikipedia article you yourself cited, cites Feynman, Penrose, and Sheldon Lee Glashow as making an even stronger argument Jane Q. Public is making -- saying that it simply is a failure as a theory, because it doesn't provide practical novel experimental predictions (in other words, it's not more complete than existing theories).
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That leads to the question: is string theory like geocentrism, in that it's not strictly disproven but it's an unnecessary pain in the ass?
I don't think this goes far enough in explaining the issue. Geocentrism wasn't much of a theory, it was more of an assumed state. Insofar as it was a theory, the evidence for it was the empirical observation that we seem to be standing still while the rest of the universe moves around us. If you want to talk about a theory that assumed geocentrism, I believe there were a few different ones, either involving angels or aether or some other explanation of what stars were. Arguably, many of them weren't "sc
Re:Crazy Parakeet Man (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Crazy Parakeet Man (Score:5, Insightful)
String theory became extremely dodgy for a while there - in fact, it went totally off the rails IMO. There were physics journal articles with long philosophical rants and no equations. When the "get random nonsense published" prank war hit physics, it's no surprise it was a string theory journal that fell for it.
This is what happens to any science without new data coming in. When the Superconducting Supercollider was cancelled, particle physics began getting a little nutty, and by the time you had mid-career physicists with who had only published works never to be challenged by experiment, well, it's an object lesson in how not to do science.
But the LHC was the needed fix. Theory and experiment are now re-coupled, and I hear that sanity is returning aggressively. Meanwhile the other end of physics, cosmology, has the most accurate data ever to work with, thanks to the CMBR probes, and has been making huge strides for a decade now (cosmology with significant digits, who'd have thought?).
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It only looks crazy in 2 dimensions. In 26 it is perfectly reasonable
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My Linear Algebra prof used to say that about his office ... in 3-space, his office was an incomprehensible mess.
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How he stayed sane
What makes you think he did?
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like some sort of Parakeet Wizard
At least he seems able to keep bird crap off his face, unlike some other wizards.
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I went to Rutgers for physics and engineering, worked in physics department for a number of years, and my desk was in a lab across the hall from his office; I can say without hesitation that he was not playing with a full deck.
That said, he was a brilliant man and one of my favorite professors. His classes were always interesting.
And damn did he love those birds.
Re:Crazy Parakeet Man (Score:4, Funny)
It did not accept the apology, and actually, I'd even go so far as to say it got a little bent out of shape over the incidents. Eventually it turned into a certified basket case, and we had to replace it with another unit that had stronger mettle.
There is a flaw in your logic (Score:2)
While we're at it (Score:3)
Why not postulate an infinite number of dimensions?
Re:While we're at it (Score:4, Funny)
Because that's not necessary to explain a particular empirical observation?
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Because that's not necessary to explain a particular empirical observation?
Out of interest, which observations to those 26 dimensions explain?
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Well, let's go to RTFA land and see:
Theorists had tried to no avail to design a Pomeron closed string theory that was unitary in the ordinary four dimensions of spacetime. Instead the theory yielded monstrosities called tachyons that defied the law of cause and effect. A tachyon is a particle or field that travels faster than light and hences moves backward in time. While some researchers such as Gregory Benford have speculated about their properties, they have never been an accepted part of realistic physical theories. Most physicists believe that the only viable way to have a physical theory with tachyons is if they decouple from the theory, meaning they do not impact the observable phenomena—things like cross-sections and scattering amplitudes—that arise from it. (In addition to scholarly papers about tachyons, Benford also wrote a short story called the “Tachyonic Anti-telephone” about causality violations through backwards-in-time communication.)
So that's the unexplained phenomenon and:
In a moment of revelation, Lovelace suddenly realized that the solution to the problem was staring him in the face. Suppose one relaxed the assumption that strings lived in a four-dimensional world. He cranked up the dimensions of their surroundings higher and higher, and found that at precisely D = 26 the tachyonic problem vanished and unitarity was restored. He could scarcely believe such an odd result.
That's the resolution that requires 26 dimensions. My linalg-fu is weak, so I'm actually not checking the math myself. Happy?
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The GP was talking about "emperical phenomenon".
So that's the unexplained phenomenon and:
Those aren't emperical phenomenon. They're not phenomenon at all. It's just a mathematical artefact from an incorrect theory.
That's the resolution that requires 26 dimensions. My linalg-fu is weak, so I'm actually not checking the math myself. Happy?
Not really, no.
Currently there are no actual phenomenon (i.e. real things) which string theory yet explains.
Why are they all space dimensions? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not only does a 2nd time dimension allow for actual time travel (in a one dimensional universe you can't change the order of anything - you need a 2nd space dimension to hop over or around someone in front of you - so a second time dimension allows for time travel).
But also it make it a lot easier to understand why we do not SEE the 5th or higher dimension, let alone confirm it with scientific instruments.
I can look up/down, North/South, and East/West, but I can not look past/future. So it makes sense that I also can not look t2+/t2-.
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What I'd really like is an extra space dimension so I can jump around traffic jams. An extra time dimension would good too so that it doesn't take me very long to do it.
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What I'd really like is an extra space dimension so I can jump around traffic jams
Buy a helicopter. They come with an extra space dimension at no extra cost.
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> but then you could get a space jam...
That's fine as long as you have space peanut butter.
Re:Why are they all space dimensions? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can look up/down, North/South, and East/West, but I can not look past/future. So it makes sense that I also can not look t2+/t2-.
You can't do anything except for analyze the signals of photons presently impinging on your retina. You have no direct means of experiencing the space ahead of and behind you any more than you do the time directly ahead of and behind you. But assuming those photons travelled in straight lines in space and time and have spectra which depend on the object they last interacted with, you can make some good inferences about what objects were there a short time ago. Just as you can make the inference that those objects may have also been there at an earlier time, or may continue to be there longer than that.
It's only because the speed of light is so fast that we act like we are making direct spatial observations. Slow it down enough and you might not say your eyes were very good for finding the position of things at all -- just for telling you what they were like in the past.
Unknown? (Score:3, Informative)
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Yeah, I thought the editing failure was typical. "Relatively unknown", "obscure", or even "all-but-forgotten" would have been a better choice. But to hyperlink to the guy's wiki bio from the word unknown? That's just lame.
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This latter statement is gradually becoming moot, thanks to the efforts of another Japanese person with a tv personality.
Now, speaking as someone who has spent 65 of my almost 80 years, dealing in electronics, I have yet to detect an error or distortion of what you can see on your tv screen (the last 54 years in broadcast engineering) that was not completely and absolutely explained when analyzed, by General Relativity, including time dilation in an electron beam caused by the combination of its mode of amp
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String theory does hundreds of testable predictions in QM and relativity and aims to predict 'stuff' that are grey area in both QM and relativity.
Where does the brain dead idea come from that thousands of physicists on the planet work on a theory that makes no testable predictions?
Maxwell formulas/predictions, radioactive decay, space time warping close to gravity wells etc. ARE EXACTLY THE SAME IN STRING THEORY! Hence scientists find it interesting!
Claud W. Lovelace (Score:5, Informative)
is his name. Not sure why the summary left it out.
I'm not a physicist, but (Score:2)
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Where is Buckaroo Bonzai when you need him? (Score:5, Funny)
Dim IX (Score:2)
Gotta be over 9000
Unknown? (Score:2)
So the inventor of multi dimensions, founder of string theory is unknown?
Perhaps you wanted to make a sentence like " at that time unknown scientist ... "?
After all people with the surname Lovelace are very well known in the geek community. Hm, have to check if they are actually related.
Oh it's not the only possibility /mathematically/ (Score:2)
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Even worse: he proposes that our universe is only 3 spatial dimensions, when it's well-accepted that this is a consequence of inflation. Originally, we had ten dimensions in balance; but the force between them gave out, and six of these contracted while three expanded. The three expanding dimensions make up our growing bubble of space--the universe--while the six shrinking are not major forces in our universe, but possibly have an impact on the quantum level (see: quantum foam).
Thus we have three-dim
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If you're nominating time as a dimension, space-time would be four dimensions. Three dimensions would be just space.
buckaroo banzai (Score:2)
Was his name Buckaroo Banzai?
Urg, terrible headline (Score:2)
Obligitory xkcd. (Score:4, Funny)
Unscientific [xkcd.com]
String theory is not a waste of resources! (Score:4, Interesting)
Cross roads of physics and computing (Score:5, Funny)
"All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection" - David Wheeler
"All problems in physics can be solved by another dimension" - Some jackass
Is 26 dimensions better or worse than 26 levels of indirection?
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Re:String theory is voodoo physics (Score:5, Insightful)
Proposing an idea that explains a previously unexplained observation isn't pseudoscience. It can certainly be wrong, and should be treated as such until experimentally tested.
But pseudoscience lives in a special realm, where it wraps itself in the verbiage of science, while not sharing the methods and intent. String theory very clearly falls into the "not testable yet" category, rather than the "designed to resist testing" category that weapons grade bullshit enjoys.
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No, but if it's inherently not testable ... then what, exactly, is it's value to science? What conditions need to come about for it to ever be tested?
From a science perspective, is it really any different than me saying that deep within every star lives a napping space goat whose farts drive the fusion process? That's untestable as well, but isn't
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Why do you allege the lack of testability is "inherent". That's a charge I hear a lot from people who pretend to like science, but mostly just regurgitate nice sayings they've heard about science.
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I'm not clear on what magic needs to come into existence to test it.
This [columbia.edu] certainly says it's untestable:
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This isn't what you were saying. I don't disagree with this digest at all. The link is a great criticism, about the nature of how scientific theories fail, but it's nothing about "inherent" untestability.
Re: String theory is voodoo physics (Score:2)
Still doesn't make it untestable. You keep fitting and explaining until you have enough description to make an unambiguous prediction - thats your test.
Pseudoscience is when you never do a test you should and can do. See any free energy insanity, or the recent EMDrive stuff.
Don't use Peter Woit as a authority... (Score:2)
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The theory of relativity wasn't testable when it was first proposed. Part of the reason Einstein never got a nobel for it was that it wasn't until the 1970's that there was real firm experimental evidence for it.
There's a distinction between something that can never be tested and something that can't be tested now due to technological limitations.
Re:String theory is voodoo physics (Score:5, Informative)
The theory of relativity wasn't testable when it was first proposed. Part of the reason Einstein never got a nobel for it was that it wasn't until the 1970's that there was real firm experimental evidence for it.
There's a distinction between something that can never be tested and something that can't be tested now due to technological limitations.
You mean the observations Eddington took [wikipedia.org] in 1919 confirming light bending in accordance with predictions by general relativity didn't take place? From the Wikipedia entry:
"Eddington's observations published the next year[5] confirmed Einstein's theory, and were hailed at the time as a conclusive proof of general relativity over the Newtonian model."
Also, relativity made a number of testable predictions. From the wiki page on the theory of relativity:
"The predictions of special relativity have been confirmed in numerous tests since Einstein published his paper in 1905, but three experiments conducted between 1881 and 1938 were critical to its validation. These are the Michelson–Morley experiment, the Kennedy–Thorndike experiment, and the Ives–Stilwell experiment. Einstein derived the Lorentz transformations from first principles in 1905, but these three experiments allow the transformations to be induced from experimental evidence."
Obviously the testing of the theory still continues as we gather more data from around the universe, but to say there wasn't firm experimental evidence until the 1970s isn't correct.
Until string theory makes some testable predictions it's just mathematical and philosophical wanking.
Re:String theory is voodoo physics (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with string theory isn't that it doesn't predict anything. The problem is that it predicts nearly everything and shows no particular bias towards one prediction over another. Pretty much any experimental result that comes out can be accommodated by string theory.
It is interesting. It may one day help to describe an actual theory (making it string toolkit rather than string theory) it may spur thought along new lines, but it isn't a very good theory.
The one thing string theory does predict strongly is supersymmetry, but that was already predicted by less extreme theories. The whole thing may turn out to be moot if LHC can't scare up a supersymmetric particle.
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Yeah, and this is a much much much more valid criticism, but I do get a bit sick of the cargo cult "I don't know anything but like to sound smart by using the word pseudoscience" posts.
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The problem with string theory isn't that it doesn't predict anything. The problem is that it predicts nearly everything and shows no particular bias towards one prediction over another. Pretty much any experimental result that comes out can be accommodated by string theory.
I think what you just described is called "math".
("Maths" across the pond.)
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Very well put - I was trying to figure out how to say this, but that nails it.
String Theory is a toolkit - an infinite set of theories. You can specify some of the tunable parameters and get a specific testable theory, but there's no non-arbitrary way to do that. So many physicist-decades sunk into something which "might be useful one day".
You can say it's all math, not physics, and so uselessness is fine, but then the problem is it's pretty bad math - no elegance, most equations aren't solvable yet.
Stri
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Let there be myriad mathematical theories. It's okay, no one is going to lose their lunch over it. Einstein's theory of relativity was theoretical at first. It was only later that scientists were able to devise experiments to test it, and they are still conjuring up new experiments for further testing. Even the aether theory had an impact on science. It forced experiments that falsified it and we learned by doing that.
Science posits new theories all the time. Even if the aren't testable now, they may some d
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A theory is not proven. It is just a hypothesis that has not been disproven, despite repeated attempts.
String theory can't be dumped; because it is just an intellectual exercise to find mathematical systems that return the same statistical shadow as quantum mechanics. As they see more statistical shadows, they refine their math. The ones that predicted yet unobserved statistical shadows gain credibility.
Doesn't mean their are actually multidimensional strings vibrating. But perhaps their is a mathemati
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String theory is not dead and never was.
I don't get how you can start a post like this:You mean a hypothesis until tested. A theory is a proven hypotheses - something laymen get wrong all the time. And then come to the brain dead conclusion: FYI string "theory" is dead.
It never occurred to you that the exact same experiment supports Einsteins Theory about Relativity AND String Theory? Do you have any single example of an experiment that 'disproved', 'falsified' the 'String Theory'?
In the last decades no one
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Let there be myriad mathematical theories. It's okay, no one is going to lose their lunch over it.
There is only so much funding, and so many tenured positions. So if funding goes to string theorists, there is less for real physics.
Einstein's theory of relativity was theoretical at first. It was only later that scientists were able to devise experiments to test it
This is backwards. Experiments had already been done that the prevailing "ether" theory could not explain. Relativity provided a simple and precise explanation. New experiments were also done. For string theory, no one can even conceive of how there can be an experimental verification.
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gtall [slashdot.org] wrote:
Actually, you have that exactly wrong: Einstein's theory of special relativity was a direct attempt to explain a specific experimental result, the negative results of the Michelson-Morley interferometer experiment to verify the existence of the liminiferous aether. The Michelson-Morley results were published in 1887, and Einstein published special relativity i
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In no way is String Theory anything like Phrenology. Trying to develop a model that unites both the large scale and the small scale is incredibly difficult. Quantum mechanics and relativity are complex enough without trying to unify them. String theory and super-symmetrical models have a basis in advanced mathematics, but the question is whether or not the model matches the immensely complex reality.
Even if it doesn't work out, studying the
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Huh?
How is a theory that attempts to describe the laws of physics *not* science?
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Because it isn't testable.
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To quote I kan reed:
'String theory very clearly falls into the "not testable yet" category, rather than the "designed to resist testing" category'
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And until it falls into the testable category, it's speculation not any form of an hypothesis.
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He's wrong, as currently formulated it is testable in the sense that you gain new data (e.g. Higgs boson interactions) you can rule out those string theory formulations that failed to predict the new data.
You can falsify individual 'string theories', but no matter what you do they will always be able to construct/revise a new one.
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Neither is an assertion about the absolute limit on speed in the universe(really: devise a test for that).
At some level, science is about creating a model that explains existing observations. Testing that model, looking for violations is essential but the postulation of an internally coherent parsimonious system that matches what we already see is science.
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Yeah, genius, you figured it out. Good job. We just observed E=MC2. It was written on a tiny chalk board on some atoms we looked at with a microscope. We didn't extrapolate that idea from any sort of theory or model.
It's absolutely the case that we mapped observational experimental data to the resulting formula, and found perfect matches, but it's not like a plot of data points for mass and heat energy released in radioactive is identical to a smooth curved mapped by a mathematical equation. We create
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Neither is an assertion about the absolute limit on speed in the universe(really: devise a test for that).
It's been tested over and over again.
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The issue there is that more parsimonious theories already predicted everything that has been tested in string theory.
The problem is that practically any experimental outcome can be shown to be a 'prediction' of string theory. String theory predicts nearly anything and everything depending on where you set the constants. It is far more descriptive than predictive.
It's not a total waste, it's just premature.
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Really? Then you have empirical evidence disproving my "Things can totally go faster than light in a vacuum once you cross the event horizon of a black hole" theory?
Re:String theory is not science! (Score:5, Insightful)
"String theory is untestable" is one of those easy to remember phrases that keeps you away from a great amount of interesting information:
1) "String theory" is actually a family of related theories that make different predictions, where they're advanced enough to do so
2) They're neither as a class, nor individually, a priori untestable
3) They're theories of high energy physics, so what predictions they do make will be difficult to test on currently existing hardware
4) The mathematical tools to make sense of the theories and make predictions are novel themselves
String theory is at a stage kind of like parachuting early-20th-century physics into the 15th century. It's not relevant at length scales where we can easily make observations, but we don't have the necessary cognative or physical tools to write it off either. Have we been handed relativity, or the aether? We can't say because we're not smart enough yet.
Now, as a matter of expediency I'd argue that any self-respective physicist should dedicate himself to advanced models that are a little closer to home and might act as stepping stones to string theory's energy scales, but since when has any self-respecting scientist been led away from a beautiful hypothesis by pragmatism? Much less a physicist?
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"String theory is untestable" is one of those easy to remember phrases that keeps you away from a great amount of interesting information:
1) "String theory" is actually a family of related theories that make different predictions, where they're advanced enough to do so 2) They're neither as a class, nor individually, a priori untestable 3) They're theories of high energy physics, so what predictions they do make will be difficult to test on currently existing hardware 4) The mathematical tools to make sense of the theories and make predictions are novel themselves
String theory is at a stage kind of like parachuting early-20th-century physics into the 15th century. It's not relevant at length scales where we can easily make observations, but we don't have the necessary cognative or physical tools to write it off either. Have we been handed relativity, or the aether? We can't say because we're not smart enough yet.
Now, as a matter of expediency I'd argue that any self-respective physicist should dedicate himself to advanced models that are a little closer to home and might act as stepping stones to string theory's energy scales, but since when has any self-respecting scientist been led away from a beautiful hypothesis by pragmatism? Much less a physicist?
If I could give out a "comment of the day" award, this one would win it.
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Then I really wonder why every german university is teaching it. ... yeah, because the germans are so backyard, true.
Ah
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That was true for Newton as well.
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Of course there were limits to how accurately he could measure, so his mathematical models were only accurate within those bounds (as always with physics).
Re:String theory is not science! (Score:4, Informative)
That's easily defended. All physical theories are math. That's it, there's nothing more to them. We interpret mathematical theories using a model, i.e., in this case, the universe. Some theories are consistent with the model, some are not. Those that are not, are no less scientific because they describe what cannot be the case. All that is required of a mathematical theory is that it be consistent.
Einstein's general relativity a mathematical theory. Astrophysicists are still constructing tests to see how valid it is. Any testing is only as good as the resolution inherent in the physical system used for testing. In that sense, you could say that general relativity will forever be just a mathematical theory, it can never be fully tested because we'll never have infinite resolution (if that even makes sense). Mathematical theories of physics are merely scribbles on a piece of paper. We manipulate the scribbles and when we see our manipulation mirrored or represented in the Universe, we say the theory describes that part of the Universe. However, the representation is only up to a certain epsilon, so it is more accurate to say the theory describes the representation only up to the limit of resolution of our tests.
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Yes it is. (Score:3)
The scientific model is quite simply:
1) Develop testable hypothesis (aka theory)
2) Develop experiments/observations to test hypothesis
3) Perform experiment/observations
4) Repeat
Anyone who participates in any of these steps is performing science. It took a while to find practical tests of String theory given it's extreme generality, but several have been suggested and a few have even been performed, ranging from the scale of planetary motion [phys.org] to LHC data [arxiv.org].
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Math is a tool used by science, it is not a science. It belongs somewhere in the useful philosophy neighborhood.