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Evidence for String Theory?
Izeickl writes "PhysOrg.com is reporting that scientists working at a neutrino detector nicknamed AMANDA at the South Pole report that evidence for string theory may soon be coming. Extra dimensions predicted by string theory may affect observed numbers of certain neutrinos and this is what the scientists will be looking for. The article further states 'No more than a dozen high-energy neutrinos have been detected so far. However, the current detection rate and energy range indicate that AMANDA's larger successor, called IceCube, now under construction, could provide the first evidence for string theory and other theories that attempt to build upon our current understanding of the universe.'"
Where all the Best Buy rebates go, no wonder Best Buy is going to a different system: We're onto them!!
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
I heard that there was only one other dimension... and the only difference was we are all wearing mexican hats... I thought this was general knowledge - perhaps the scientists here should have checked the facts before they started considering 24 dimensional super gravities and the like
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
so will string theory finally be falsifiable and be more than a religion?
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
...one of those sci-fi christmas episodes: "parallel chihuahua dimension"
Great, now we'll be able to see Cthulhu and he'll get all embarassed because he'll be like, in a shower or something when that thing's turned on, and he'll eat the goddamn earth. Can't we be happy with *our* dimension of existence? Wasn't invading Iraq enough?
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Is this in any way related to the Fifth Dimension, and Let the Sun Shine?
Of course, it may not.
WTF?
This is not the only experiment which could probe large extra dimensions; the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is another notable experiment. However, this article is not implying that AMANDA (or any other experiment) has found evidence for string theory, or even that they are likely to.
Normally, string physics is thought to appear at the Planck scale (far beyond what we will ever be able to probe directly), because that is thought to be the size of the "curled up" extra dimensions. However, it's possible that the dimensions aren't actually that small, that they could be much larger — possibly not much smaller than a millimeter. (They could even be infinitely large, not curled up at all, and we could be living on a 4-dimensional "brane" close to another one.) In those cases, stringy behavior is brought down from the Planck scale to as low as 1 TeV (tera-electron volt), which is the energy that corresponds to a distance somewhat below a millimeter. (By the Uncertainty Principle, higher energies correspond to shorter distances that can be probed.)
The problem is, there isn't a lot of reason to believe that these scenarios ought to be true; they are highly speculative (even relative to string theory as a whole!). To a large extent, they are just hopeful thinking — that stringy physics might occur at in an energy regime we can probe. They could be helpful in understanding the hierarchy problem (the question of whether and why there is an absence of new particles between the electroweak and Planck scales), but when you get down to it, most high energy physicists are not betting on large extra dimensions. So these experiments might very well not show up any evidence of string theory (even if string theory is true).
Sounds like someone has been reading Philip Pullman.
When they start drilling holes in people's heads let me know...
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
"Strings" are just another way of describing devine, Noodly Appendages.
Actually, this is really cool. Looking forward to what the use of the new detector shows, or doesn't, as the case may be. String theory is such a mind bender for most people (including me), that anything making it more directly tangible will really help focus the conversation. Or end it. Either way is good.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Construction on AMANDA began in 1994, and South Pole was chosen because you need high transparency ice. That means you need an ice sheet substantially thicker than 1400 meters (the bubble conversion zone) in a region with few dust or volcanic impurities. South Pole satisfies both these properties very well.
I remember what happened the last time some scientists were doing experimental research in the South Pole. Let's just nip this one in the bud, shall we? Launch Eva!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
AMANDA's larger successor, called IceCube,
Also seen in such blockbuster hits as Boyz n the Nucleus, Three Quarks, and xXx: State of the Quantum.
It's cool that there's a testable prediction coming out of string theory, but I would take this with a grain of salt for the next few decades. For one thing, I don't think neutrinos themselves are well enough understood yet that string theory would provide the only (or even the best) possible explanation for discrepencies in their 'up' and 'down' neutrino rates. A multitude of experiments are being done now just to try to pin down the parameters governing neutrnio behavior. So if AMANDA sees the discrepency predicted by string theory, it would take a lot more work and many more years to demonstrate that there isn't a better explanation for it.
Peon: We've counted 12 possible events out of 789,567,345,754,234,567,876 (est) neutrinos passing thru the detector.
TS: Hmm, that's as expected, totally useless number of events to draw any inferences from. Keep at it.
(Next day) South Pole Grant Administrator: Hey, TS, got any news I can tell Washington? Your grant approval comittee meeting for the Big Project is next week!
TS: Oh, yes, Er, Um, hte data we got from their previous infusion of cash indicates Big Things, the possible proff of String Theory, SuperGravity, The AntiMacassar Postulate, and much more. But better just mention String Theory to the commitee, it was on the cover of Popular Science last month.
SPGA: Will do!
Will this neutrino evidence support or detract from Heim Theory, which also predicts multiple dimensions?
I think you were joking, but astrophysicists extracted a surprising amount of information from the 19 neutrinos observed from Supernova 1987A.
The year; 2008 A.D.
Scientists at the South Pole have just had a major breakthrough in proving the existence of other dimensions when a message was received at the IceCube facility from an alternate dimension!
The message was as follows;
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO ME!
"More junk is being built there all the time."
What do you think is creating the "hole" in the ozone layer? I've always wanted to know how the CFCs out of my hair spray gets to the south pole.
http://oc.metblogs.com/archives/fsm.jpg
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Religion that hides so far from rationality and logic that it become non-falsifiable, unproven and unprovable, is hardly the robust Christianity I find in the Bible.
If you find internal consistency (within the dogma of a religion, including their trusted documents) and external consistency with the outer (earth/cosmos) and inner (conscience/mind) world, then you can start taking it seriously.
Ordinary Christianity has its share of mystery and hyper-rational statements (that is, statements that seem to be beyond 19th century rationalism to fully unpack/understand), it seems to be extremely falsifiable and, to different degrees depending on your presuppositions, provable.
But that's just me.
New Scientist sure has created a lot of Heim groupies.
The fact is, pretty much nobody knows what the hell Heim theory predicts. Most of his theory was never published or reviewed by his peers. We don't even know if his theory is self-consistent, whether the predictions hyped by New Scientist or the Internet "Heim appreciation society" that's pushing it are actually predictions of the theory, etc. For that matter, hardly anybody knows what the definition of the theory is.
Just because some people have made a bunch of wild claims about what Heim theory can predict, doesn't mean it's something to get excited about. Nor does Heim's reputation. Schroedinger himself thought he had come up with a unified field theory, called a big press conference, privately spoke of winning a second Nobel Prize. Some reporter asked Einstein what he thought, and he responded with a carefully worded response to the effect that one shouldn't get the impression that physics is like unstable Third World dictatorships, always experiencing revolutions. Schroedinger's theory didn't pan out and the two stopped corresponding for over a year.
The really cool thing about the very thick ice on the south pole is that beneath the few douzend meters of surface layer, its incredibly pure and transparent.
Now if a neutrino causes a shower of cherenkow radiations, it can be detected many many meters away.
So instead of building huge watertanks in deep mines, one can use the deeper ice layers as a large detector.
You just melt holes into it and put photodetectors in a grid pattern, and get billions of tons of detector mass (which you need because low chance of neutrino interaction with matter)
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
No, and neither will any of the stories reported in the history of all Slashdot. If you only want to read about boring things, why are you reading Slashdot at all?
Will it stop the onward march of socialism?
;)
I'm confused by this one. There's an onward march of socialism? I thought it fascism
You may think we are only operating in 3+1 dimensions, perhaps our terms of understanding other dimensions are limited. These other dimensions are said to make matter what it is, for instance a certain multi-dimensional vibratory resonance pattern is what makes a hydrogen atom different from an atom of gold. (IAACST (I am a crackpot string theorist)). A dimension "is a parameter or measurement required to define the characteristics of an object" (wikipedia) so i tend to look at things like color, taste or emotion as other "dimensions", though perhaps this is sematics to some, or difficult comparing mathematics to the real world.
Music, Games, Media Art and Programming
A functional understanding of the fundamental building blocks that make up our physical reality could do everything you've mentioned in your post...and a LOT more. It's like the atomic bomb x10, if you really think about it.
There's no need for all this deep theoretical work and all these expensive detectors. I've got plenty of string at home in a jam jar. If they ask nicely, they can have some; it's in this dimension too (I think..).
On y va, qui mal y pense!
You essentially ask: what use is fundamental physics research?
You can't ever predict what applications fundamental research will have on technology. Sometimes, things are immediate: after Roengten discovered X-rays in 1895, the medical application was obvious. On the other hand, in 1905 Einstein predicted that objects moving fast experience time dilation relative to stationary objects. In 1915 he also predicted that the same would hold for objects higher up in a gravitational well. This was completely irrelevant to then-current technology: Nothing man-made moved faster than 500mph, or got high enough off the ground, and anyway time couldn't be measured accurately enough for these effects to matter. Swing around to the 1980s. The US government is now launching the GPS system, which depends on exteremly precise timing synchronization between a satellite in orbit and the unit on the ground. It turns out that the two relativistic time-dilation effects have to be taken into account for the system to work at all. Who'd have thunk this in 1915?
Moreover, progress is usually incremental. No single discovery will "cure HIV" or give us infinite energy. New physics beyond the standard model might have technological applications in 80 years. Does that mean we shouldn't discover it today?
-William Brendel
Actually, now that I think about it... It could turn this planet into the socialist utopia that socialists have been dreaming about since the idea was concieved. That's not to say that we wouldn't encounter another economic game to participate in beyond our atmosphere. Oh wait... That's Star Trek. Oh wait.. science-fiction sometimes ends up being a little less strange than the truth, even...
The rapper Ice Cube decided to sue a bunch of scientists for trademark violation.
Someone drop me a line when we can use this knowledge to do that Quantum Leap thing and jump around in our own lifetime.
Then I can go back and warn myself not to:
Write articles about how Apple is dying
Buy a DIVX player from Circuit City
Open the red door in that Choose Your Own Adventure book that ended in me being killed by that vampire that on the cover sort of looks like Boy George.
Oh yes, I believe in the string theory. Without this I wouldn't be able to play on my Xbox 360
I completely agree, at the time most fundamental physics research seems completely pointless at the time but often in 60-80 years time its extremely important. Take the example of quantum mechanics, in the early 1900s, researching into being able to explain the precise movements and behaviour of subattomic particles, effects so small they had no practical application in everyday life may have seemed a bit pointless. 60 years later the understanding this lead to the invention of the transistor, which some people might argue is of some importance in todays world.
Anyway as an aside, evidence for extra dimensions != evidence for string theory. String theory isnt the only model which predicts extra dimensions. Evidence for no extra dimensions is evidence that string theory doesnt exist. However we'ld probably have to go to the planck scale to be sure which is probably impossible for the time being. Anyway we're far more likely to pick up string theory by the breaking of the E6 symetry group which produces extra massive neutral gauge bosons (Z').
Just your friendly neighbourhood extra dimensional researcher (CDF expt, Fermilab)
Because Santa is an ID-proponent, and refuses to allow such blasphemy to be conducted on his pristine icy shores.
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=33 5
A snippet of which is:
The half a dozen references to string theory in the short press release might lead the gullible to think that we're about to be provided with evidence for the "exotic predictions of string theory", but that has little relationship to the reality here, one aspect of which of course is that there are no "predictions of string theory" about any of this.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think that hinges entirely on what you mean by "make testable predictions". I would say that the problem is that there are too many string theories that make predictions (most of which are nothing like our universe). What is needed is some way of focusing on which ones are "likely", in some sense, or in some way constraining the space of theories. (That's what the whole Landscape debate is about.)
LOL. How the fuck will this good for humanity, you moron? Reds under the beds, PANIC STATIONS, omg!!1!!111!!11 They'll stop our corporate profits!!!!1
Dude, that's "G" String Theory, which is easily observable at the macro scale, the only detector needed being an eyeball.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
largely, I suspect, because the south pole is on land and the north pole is not. Also wouldn't there be more interference from nuclear subs passing by all the time?
An other thing to keep in mind is, that there are excacly 3 spatial dimensions! It has to be this way since the basic rules of our Universe (eg. gravity ~ 1/(r*r) ) would be different. So you cannot have any existence in the other dimensions, which is similar to ours.
I, for one, welcome our new highly charged overlords!
The extra dimensions spoken of are spatial dimensions, so there would be more than 3. Deviations from 1/r^2 would be seen, but only on scales smaller than the size of the extra dimensions. If the extra spatial dimensions beyond the 3 we see are small, they could exist but we wouldn't know it. We would be constantly be moving around in the extra dimensions as well as our 3, and not be able to tell.
Yes, but an interesting principle of G-string Theory is that obvserving XXL and above strings can permanently destroy the measuring device, i.e., the eyeball, and hence can't readily be observed.
I, for one, will enjoy playing Doom 3 in RL in Antarctica. Where's my BFG?
what the fuck do you mean by "the third world from breeding like rats" and the "onward march of socialism" ?!
what is your problem ?
do you judge people on this planet by geographic or economic factors ?
SO WHAT if THEY are breeding, you dont ?!
this is the least we know for sure about life. that we multiply.
are u a fag ?!
do you feel a threat in socialism !?
i thought "americans" were over that embarrasing b-movie episode.
u are a true idiot me thinks.
please don't have a nice day.
Do we really need an atomic bomb x10? If that's all we can think to do with the new knowlege we might gain, is that really an improvement? Why must the immidiate first application of technology always seem to be better and better ways to kill people and break stuff? If that's the first thing we make with our exporations into new science, than we are no more civilized than out cavemen ancestors.
No. A physical interpretation of a dimension is a direction you can move in. We can't visualize a fourth physical dimension of travel any more than a creature who lived in a two dimensional plane world could visualize the direction "up from the plane / down from the plane".
IAACST (I am a crackpot string theorist)).
[crickets chirping]
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Yes, that's absolutely true, and furthermore such observance has been construed to induce direct physiological effects, such as hairy palms and thinning of the wallet.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Socialism? I thought that stopped decades ago...
I find one potential use for those extra dimensions - a place where emotions, ghosts and the whole paranormal zoo can reside. There's quite a bit of stuff there which has no space whatsoever in Newton or Einstein style universes, but which people routinely relate to in a more or less systematic way. Would be nice to have a rational explanation for this stuff :)
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
None of those find refuge in the extra dimensions found in string theory or other physics theories, either.
It's called "neuropsychology".
Maybe I should have been more specific. I was speaking in terms of the impact that the atomic bomb has had on our cultural and societal development. The way I see it, the bomb represents a fundamental shift in the way humans view the world. The potential for self-annihilation became a vivid reality, and in that same breath a windfall of scientific understanding and advancement has been pushing us forward for the last 50 years... Sorry for being so vague...
This would be a awasome discovery, I dont think that people actually realize what it is.. Its what everything breaks down to the smallest particles.. It could lead to things like replacators for anything.. If everything is made out of the same dozen high-energy neutrinos. Then to make anything one would only need to munipulate those 12 neutrinos to make anything imaginable.
Will Jerry O'Connell be involved in this one as well?
Reality is a big nasty dragon. Fortunately I don't believe in dragons.
There are some interesting implications if you think of a universe with a different number of dimensions: Take a 2-dimensional universe for example; There could be no form of life with an intestinal tract like we know, since it would cut the poor creature in two halfs.
Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh.
Loop Quantum Gravity: http://www.angryflower.com/dating.gif
http://www.coderoshi.com/
Here we go again, with another round of science versus religion. This is only failure to see that they are not contridictory, only complimentary. In essence they are both one.
I think Einstein did a good job of visualizing the 4th dimension (or space-time). I work in the time domain myself, for instance when I compose music. My point was that "perhaps our terms of understanding other dimensions are limited", at least by our framework of representation.
Music, Games, Media Art and Programming
(a little knowlege is a dangerous thing)
As for science versus religion, I am issuing a restraining order. Religion must remain 500 yards away from science at all times.
You make a good point and I fully agree. In addition to possible applications there is something maybe even more important one could say in favour of fundamental research. It is part of human culture to ask fundamental questions and seek answers to them. Just as it is to create works of art or literature. There is more about human life than just doing business and building things useful for practical purposes.
Unfortunately, this point is not made very often recently. Probably because scientists fear that this argument is all too easily dismissed as weak or a lame excuse. I think it is not. Otherwise one could next argue that theatres and galleries are useless and that we should print nothing but text books and reference manuals.
617B3B7F7E7C7D7F00EOF
Possibly only at low energies. At high enough energy we might find that we have 4+1, 5+1 or even more dimensions to move in.
Will it build the space plane? Will it allow FTL travel, in real terms, not some sort of "it would work, if only we had an infinite energy source"? Will it cure HIV, will it stop the third world from breeding like rats? Will it stop the onward march of socialism?
Unless we get out there and do the research how can we tell? We don't even know if extra dimensions exist let alone what we could use them for. I've often heard it said that the problem with trying to predict the future is that in the short term we generally greatly over estimate the march of progress but in the long term we under-estimate it. As an example think of the predictions for immediate bases on the moon and mars at the time of the lunar landings which have still not occurred and yet nobody at the time ever thought we'd have a global network of computers sharing information around the entire globe and revolutionising many aspects of modern life.
"Santa's invisible workshop is already there. Since it is such a large operation, it takes up most of the real estate up there."
Well, that and the Arctic Ocean, which makes real estate somewhat, er, mobile. 8^)
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
#352172 +(4691)- [X] I broke my G-string while fingering a minor :( ...
I was trying to play Knocking on Heaven's Door.
Oh well, time to buy new strings.
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
If you have not listened to Theorectical Physicist Michio Kaku http://www.mkaku.org/ then you are in for QUIT a treat!!
This man is absolutely brilliant in not just string theory, but space and time travel, and quantum physics.
He states his belief in God, but will answer questions that he does not have 'facts' for with a: "I take a agnositc point of view on that matter.."
LOL!! Even tho I don't understand hardly a darn thing the man says.. I KNOW you will enjoy listen/reading him if you do!! :)
One interesting interview with him http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/advanced_c ivilization_become.html
-- SlashDot's Moderation system is not broke, it is fixed.
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
A correct prediction is not necessarily evidence for a theory; the prediction might be a tautology or it might be true of many other theories as well.
For example, my hypothesis might be that Donald Trump's social security number is 666-66-6666. Now, I conduct an experiment in which I test the prediction that his social security number is not 123-45-6789 and the experiment succeeds. I have gotten a tiny bit of evidence for my original hypothesis, but it's so small as to be negligible.
Well, with scientific theories, it's even worse because there are not just 1 billion of them but an infinite number--unless you do things exactly right, a successful prediction gives you no evidence for a scientific theory at all.
Dr. Myron Evans has produced a unified field theory of general relativity
that merges gravity and electromagnetism in only 4 dimensions. See it at
www.aias.us. The math is deep (You know Tensors and Tetrads, right?)
When a mathematician or physicist uses the adjective "general", it means that us mere mortals aren't going to understand it even if we think we do. It's like a code word that means that you shouldn't be tempted to draw an analogy between the world as you understand it and the hypothesis being explained, because it just won't work.
I think Einstein did a good job of visualizing the 4th dimension (or space-time). I work in the time domain myself, for instance when I compose music.
Sorry, but that's still not right. Yes, time is a dimension, but it's not your typical spatial metric like left/right, up/down, forward/backward, ana/kata (fourth dimension), etc.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Take a look at the geneaologies presented at the top of the following article:
h read&forum=3&topic=56
http://www.phlclub.com/forums/index.php?action=vt
Then take a look at the subsequent discussion of this issue (read the whole page, which mentions other contradictions as well).
It's pretty clear that the two lists of "begats" are inconsistent with each other. Some of the minor inconsistencies can possibly be resolved around (as per the discussion of the genealogy of Mary versus Joseph in the page), but there are still many discrepancies.
Note that the discussion on this page is quite readable, since the participants (both pro- and anti-Christian) are attempting to analyze logically, rather than emotionally, and are treating each other with respect. This discussion is not filled with pejoratives as many similar discussions are.
Personally (and speaking as a skeptic), I agree that the Skeptic's Annotated Bible is clearly biased, and thus not really performing the job that its title proclaims. A follower of scientific skepticism should approach a subject neutrally, and examine the evidence rather than using verbal tricks to skew a reader's opinion (using emotion rather than evidence and logic). To take an emotional investment in one side or the other is to tempt oneself with distorting facts. The evidence should speak for itself.
Personally, I think that there is ample evidence that the King James Bible is not the perfect, literal word of God, due to many inconsistencies that have yet to be explained. Note that even finding a single contradiction in it (such as the genealogical issues mentioned above) demonstrates that the "perfect, literal" viewpoint is false. I find the view of the Catholics (that the Bible is the word of God as interpreted and translated by less-than-perfect humans) much more plausible. At least, it's self-consistent, which the "bible is the literal truth" view is not, in light of the various contradictions. However, just because something is self-consistent doesn't mean that it is true. I have still not found sufficient evidence supporting even this view to convince me that, for instance, the Bible is true but the Koran, Talmud, etc. are false, so I have to consider myself an agnostic at this point.
FTA:"that ghostlike particles from space could serve as probes to a world beyond our familiar three dimensions, the research team says." The science freeks should be carefull!! They just might find GOD in those other dimensions.
This has been another valuable and informative opinion from:
Catahoula!
I work for AMANDA/IceCube. It's nice to see that our supercool experiment gets media attention, but there are a few statements in that article which need a comment or two. User davidoff404 already commented on the theoretical aspects of the article, so I will mostly limit myself to the experimental aspects.
Actually, we see about 900 neutrino events per year. Their directions are homogeneously distributed over the sky and the energy spectrum is (still) compatible with the assumption that all these neutrinos were produced in interactions of high energy cosmic rays (protons, nuclei) with the Earth atmosphere (all around the globe). It might be that there are neutrinos among them from extraterrestrial sources, but individual events cannot be identified as such. We continue taking data until neutrino events from single extraterrestrial sources (or with higher energy than expected from atmospheric neutrinos) pile up enough such that they stick out over the atmospheric neutrino background.
Note: we do not detect those neutrinos directly; they interact with the ice, and may convert into a "muon" (which is like an electron, only about 200 times heavier, and it decays after a little while). That muon still carries most of the neutrino's energy with it, so it flies practically with the speed of light through the ice, sending out Cherenkov light (the electromagnetic equivalent of a sonic boom) along the way. The tracks can be kilometers long. We only see the part of the track in or near our detector, so we can only estimate a lower limit of the energy of an individual muon. When the neutrino does not convert into a muon, then the energy is dissipated in a relatively small volume; which makes it much harder to estimate the direction, but easier to estimate the energy.
(And of course those atmospheric neutrinos are not only background. We are happy to see them, as they prove that our detector is not blind. And we can use them to test the models of cosmic ray spectra and to study properties of neutrinos themselves.)
Actually, neutrinos are so weakly interacting that the vast majority of them just flies right through the Earth. It is really tiny fraction of them which happens to bump into an terrestrial atom. And an even tinier fraction which bumps into an ice molecule near our machine. So they come from all directions, up and down, the Earth is not shielding them. However, like everywhere on Earth there is a lot of cosmic rays thundering down on the atmosphere above the South Pole, and some of it results in high energy muons which make it all the way down to our detector. Their rate is about a million times higher than that of the muons originating from the neutrinos. Only when we see a muon track going upwards, or when it has an energy much higher than expected from the cosmic ray spectrum, then we call it a neutrino event.
When we start talking about really very high energy neutrinos (PeV and more) then the picture gets a little bit different: at those energies the probability that a neutrino interacts with atoms gets so high that the Earth is indeed opaque for neutrinos. If there are such high energy neutrinos flying through the universe, then we expect to see them from above and horizontally. This is already expected with standard model physics, without assumptions about microscopic black holes; so I am curious as to what Goldberg and Feng are after.
I'd like to know how, at the completion of the experiment, they are going to remove all the hardware out of the ice? Surely they aren't just going to leave it there? There's enough man-made rubbish encroaching on ecologically sensitive areas of the planet already, and to not consider how the post-experiment cleanup is going to be done is just sad.
It would be awesome if this could be combined with Heim's theory. A unified theory which also predicts higher dimensions. The best thing is, theoretically it allows FTL by pushing matter into a higher dimesion by the use of a powerful EMF. Or so i am told :)
Why is it so hard for people to believe in the possibility of higher dimensions?
Is it fear of the unknown or change?
Is it a disbelief that 3D space bends or a rationalization for this bending to somehow be within our 3 physical dimensions?
Is it that higher dimensions opens up the possibility for the existence of God(s), yet at the same time disproves almost all preexisting legends and disrupts and subverts tradition and religions that would rather maintain authority and control?
Is it just too far fetched for you to consider possible? The Sun is too far fetched for me to consider possible. Same goes for that giant black hole at the center of our galaxy.
But if higher dimensions do exist and we can learn how to use them... well... maybe we aren't ready for this knowledge at this time. Maybe we have a lot of other psychelogical and social problems to solve before we should be allowed to manipulate gravity. Perhaps the Department of Homeland Security should outlaw all higher dimensional research for our own security...
Now all I need is a one million ton olive and my martini will be complete!
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
Of course, string theory may be right. The philosophical problem is that many of our best minds are spending all their time on a theory that can't be proven or disproven with current technology.
You bring up a chicken and egg problem--one has to spend time on a theory to figure out what it does predict and devise ways of testing it. In practice, physicists often spend time thinking about theories that cannot be proven, and this often serves as a spur for development of new technologies. Working out the predictions of a complex theory can take decades; indeed, new and often surprising predictions of quantum theory are still emerging.
this post will get a +4 funny.
[Of course it's client-server; it runs on a LAN]
"...the goal of the Theory of Everything, to have a model that explains and can predict everything."
Pysicists in the 20th centry thought if you smash things together hard enough it is possible to deduce a TOE, Godel did not agree.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Lectoids from Planet X across the 8th dimension.
Extra dimensions aren't evidence for string theory. String theory needs extra dimensions to work, but extra dimensions don't need String theory to explain them. Extra dimensions would simply mean that String theory could be right, but so could a large number of other ideas.
IceCube? I think xXx: State of the Union proved we should all be a little skeptical of IceCube's work. At best, his encouraging refrain of "Put yo ass into it!" might motivate the scientists to work a little harder. Ice T, on the other hand, through his work on Law and Order: SVU, has shown himself to be a much more competent scientist than Mr. Cube. If they get Ice T on the staff, I think we can all rest assured that we're getting some real science done.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
And what in that article violates known physical facts? It's speculative, but theoretically possible in string theory, which is a physical theory.
Whoops. Looks like I pasted in the first link twice instead of the second link which has Michio Kaku apparently suspending all disbelief in the face of the magic of nanotech.
Read this article down to the bottom. I'll skip over his suggestions for how to open a wormhole because they're beyond my capability to comment on with my current understanding of physics, but I'll get right into the madness:
Wow! You can encode the DNA sequences, memories, and technology of an entire civilization into a single molecule! And that single molecule "machine" can take off at light speed with no external power source and manipulate matter to create more of itself without changing or losing any of its own properties and embedded information too! Oh, and apparently this molecule is really small too since that somehow has something to do with its mysterious ability to travel at light speed.
What a freaking flake. He seems to have drank the Dexlerian / Grey Goo Kool-Aid interpretation of the magical powers that nanotech will have to one day violate all known laws of physics.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").