Hi Nic,
The answer to your question depends who you talk to.
A couple of decades ago, strings were a stroke of genius. Then later,
madness, now, genius again!
The theory has definate merit, but nothing has been proven beyond
doubt, and so, will remain a promising theory until someone can either
create an experiment which we can practically test, or debunk.
What do I think? It's not impossible by any means, but I have never
seen a cosmic string, nor an effect which can be nothing but a Cosmic string.
Sometimes I think we are just desperate for a really major breakthough,
something I honestly can't say we have seriously had for 100 years.
Kind of sad really.
Someone recently said that we as humans know about 6% of all the scientific
knowledge there is to know. Is he mad? (probably. You can't know this until you actually know it all). That too is quite entertaining.
