(July 25, 2011 at 9:21 am)theVOID Wrote: Read some work by Leonard Susskind, his books are awesome.
The book "The Black Hole War" about his battle with Hawking on whether or not black holes destroy quantum information is my excellent and describes a lot of relevent concepts in physics, the other one "The Cosmic Landscape" is less specific and deals with 'the illusion of intelligent design'.
http://www.amazon.com/Cosmic-Landscape-S...t_ep_dpt_2
For a counterpoint, read Lee Smolin. In Lee's opinion, string theory is a mathematically indulgence disguising itself as a scientific theory, which has severely handicapped actual productivity of theoretical physics for 30 years by pushing every more untestable musings that makes no specific prediction, thus despite making ever more fantastic claims of infinite promise, had in reality made the last 30 years the only 30 year period since Newton when nothing new has really been added to the fundation of physics.
He also argued that strong theory blighted 2 whole generation of physicsts by training them to favor mathematical cleverness and extravagant visualizing over intellectual vigor of the testable hypothesis.
