String Theory Put to the Test

secretsather writes to mention that scientists have come up with a definitive test that could prove or disprove string theory. The project is described as "Similar to the well known U.S. particle collider at Fermi Lab, the Large Hadron Collider, scheduled for November 2007, is expected to be the largest, and highest energy particle accelerator in existence; it will use liquid helium cooled superconducting magnets to produce electric fields that will propel particles to near light speeds in a 16.7 mile circular tunnel. They then introduce a new particle into the accelerator, which collides with the existing ones, scattering many other mysterious subatomic particles about."

Comments

Re:You can't prove a theory

[Bastian]

I wouldn't call that junk science so much as failure to make a pedantic distinction.

If experiment can show that string theory makes predictions more accurately than current models, I'd say that proven is a good enough word to describe what has happened. Not in the sense that it's been shown to be an absolutely correct description of the machinations of the universe. Proven in the way that General Relativity was proven - decades before all of its predictions had been tested. Proven as in "it's been shown to be a better model," i.e., proven in about the same sense a person can "prove himself."

Re:Don't they want string theory to succeed?

[kfg]

From the wording in the article it sounds like they actually want string theory to fail. . .

A test in which a theory fails is the most useful sort of test.

. . .despite the fact that we have few alternatives so far.

I cannot accept a theory simply because I don't know what to replace it with. Make the tests, generate failures; and then new theories which take the failures into account. That's how the alternatives come into being in the first place. That's why the "failures" are the most useful.

"Successes" only make us complacent with the state of our knowledge, which might well be wrong anyway. "Failures" let us know where we lack knowledge. Science is not done where we know, but where "here there be dragons." It's about exploring the dark corners of the map, not sitting in our offices diddling with ourselves.

We leave that sort of thing to the engineers.

And think about this:

Who says we need an alternative? The quest for a Unified Field Theory is an asthetic desire on the part of physicists. The universe is well known for taking our asthetic desires and shoving them up our collective arses.

Perhaps there can be only two.

KFG