A few weeks ago, Amanda Peet gave a public lecture that we live-blogged here. In the Q&A part after the talk, she made a statement that I sort of glossed over: that the LHC was able to verify some of the predictions of String Theory. In my head, I thought, "yeah, all the predictions that the Standard Model itself made, and nothing more." And I let it go.
Image credit: © WGBH Educational Foundation, via http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/conversation-with-brian-greene.html.
But maybe it's time to ask that question for real: will the LHC be able to test String Theory? And if so, how? This is a question that -- quite honestly -- was a little beyond what I knew how to do, so I called in an expert from among our contributors: Sabine Hossenfelder.
Image credit: Matt Strassler, via http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/some-speculative-theore….
Here's her answer, and the amazing story of whether the LHC will be able to test String Theory!
- Log in to post comments
More like this
"Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own." -Georg C. Lichtenberg
There was so much action on Starts With A Bang this week, from darkness to the brightest lights, that it's going to be a bear choosing what to highlight from the comments. Here's what this past…
"You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space." -Johnny Cash
This past week at Starts With A Bang saw quite a lot…
"Other than the laws of physics, rules have never really worked out for me." -Craig Ferguson
Earlier this week, evidence was presented measuring a very rare decay rate -- albeit not incredibly precisely -- which point towards the Standard Model being it as far as new particles accessible to…
“Supposedly she’d died, but here she was again–somewhat changed, but you couldn’t kill her. Not when the truest part of her hadn’t even been born.” -Denis Johnson
Over the past 100 years, our picture of the Universe has changed dramatically, on both the largest scales and the smallest.
Image…
Another great article by Sabine! Wish she was at Perimeter talking more on LQG instead of Lego-land lecture. Loop Quntum Gravity.... which for reasons unknown to me, is sadly never covered on this blog.
Love the Sabine articles and also vote for something on LQG. Ethan has given more time to MOND and he hates MOND.
Considering that I get much of my knowledge of theoretical physics from this blog, and the fact that I really don't know very much about LQG, I would also not mind seeing an article or two about it. Of course, that just may not be Ethan's area of expertise and he may not have a guest columnist willing to take on such an article, so I fully understand if such an article doesn't appear.
The trick with getting Ethan to write about a particular subject is to approach it from another angle.
That angle would be his significant other Jamie . If not for her, we may not even have articles/thoughts from Ethan on String Theory here on his Blog at all.
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2008/04/14/q-a-on-string-theory/
So if you want a post from Ethan on LQG, I would appeal to the higher authority.
As Voltaire said:
"All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women. "
Thank you Sabine for a logical look at string theory. I think SUSY is running out of places to hide!
PS let's have a LQG article ;-)
sabine, what is your views on LQG?
I don't have much business with LQG, sorry. I sometimes write about LQC, for example here
http://backreaction.blogspot.de/2014/10/does-loop-quantum-cosmology-mak…
Last time I wrote about LQG I think was this
http://backreaction.blogspot.de/2011/10/super-extra-loop-quantum-gravit…