The near future...

[ChrisPachi]

More of an exposition dump I think. Someone has to explain it to the audience and it's done fairly well in that scene.

From the TED profile of Mr. Weyland: "...it would be his dynamic break-throughs in generating synthetic atmosphere above the polar ice cap that gained him worldwide recognition and spawned an empire". My guess is that Weyland Corp had been at it for a while even before the time of the viral 2073.

The mention of the proverbial fire in his speech also suggests that maybe he has already acquired some kind of alien technology, or already has the mysterious 'clue' that leads them off-world?

-Chris

[Promethean Fire]

More of an exposition dump I think. Someone has to explain it to the audience and it's done fairly well in that scene.

Yeah, it was always clearly intended to be exposition and handled about as efficiently as it could be.  Else, we would have had the "Pointer" scene.  "Now this is how an Atmosphere Processor works..." 

[aliennaire]

By no means am I any expert in String theory...but I will hazard your challenge of distilling M-Theory into simple terms... Mathematically, the problem is that General Relativity (which describes Gravity) is a classical field theory that is. Nonrenormalizable.  Renormalization is a key mathematical tool for treating infinite integrals, which occur in Quantum Field Theory.  String Theory essentially gets around this roadblock, by introducing extra dimensions and exploiting mathematical symmetries which result.  String theory (as a generic term) is a theory of Quantum Gravity, and attempts to unify Gravity with Quantum Field Theory/Standard Model.

Thanks for explanation! While I'm able to imagine interaction of fundamental particles, the mathematical stipulation for this is plain impassable for me. 
So what principally this M Theory srtives to achieve is to marry two other theories: 1) the one, which deals with time and space (General relativity) to 2) the theory, describing energy and matter (Quantum Mechanics), in mathematical terms. I guess, if the success would ever be met, the opportunity to curb timespace uncertainity will arise immensely.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Terraforming a relatively recent innovation in the ALIEN universe? 

Probably, by 2023, Weyland's research team has just discovered and substantiated the terraforming process or schematically designed AP, but didn't yet build any.

[ChrisPachi]

Here's my best explanation - counting on Deuterium to come in and set me straight.

String theories attempt to reconcile Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity/gravity because at QM scales the strength of gravity is so small as to be non-existent and that buggers up the maths. This is why string theories require extra-dimensional 'strings' to provide for extra degrees of freedom that are outside of our normal 3 dimensional space.

M-Theory tries to reconcile all of the different string theories by treating them as different ways of looking at the same thing. In other words, M-Theory is the main game and the different string theories are just alternate representations of it.

-Chris

[Deuterium]

Here's my best explanation - counting on Deuterium to come in and set me straight.

String theories attempt to reconcile Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity/gravity because at QM scales the strength of gravity is so small as to be non-existent and that buggers up the maths. This is why string theories require extra-dimensional 'strings' to provide for extra degrees of freedom that are outside of our normal 3 dimensional space.

M-Theory tries to reconcile all of the different string theories by treating them as different ways of looking at the same thing. In other words, M-Theory is the main game and the different string theories are just alternate representations of it.

-Chris

Chris, I think your summary was spot on.  My previous explanation was most likely too long.  I might add a few brief notes...but as I have been out with my mates, and currently am pissed as a parrot (isn't that the Australian slang?), I will defer to posting any more until tomorrow...or when I am sober (whichever comes first). 

[ChrisPachi]

Chris, I think your summary was spot on.  My previous explanation was most likely too long.  I might add a few brief notes... but as I have been out with my mates, and currently am pissed as a parrot (isn't that the Australian slang?), I will defer to posting any more until tomorrow...or when I am sober (whichever comes first). 

Thanks mate! Yep, 'pissed as a parrot' is classic Australian slang. Apparently it originates from parrots getting drunk from fermented fruit and falling out of trees.

-Chris