Strings Link the Ultra-Cold With the Super-Hot

gabrlknght writes "Superstring theory claims the power to explain the universe, but critics say it can't be tested by experiment. Lately, though, string math has helped explain a couple of surprising experiments creating 'perfect liquids' at cosmic extremes of hot and cold. 'Both systems can be described as something like a shadow world sitting in a higher dimension. Strongly coupled particles are linked by ripples traveling through the extra dimension, says Steinberg, of Brookhaven. String math describing such ripples stems from an idea called the holographic principle, used by string theorists to describe certain kinds of black holes. A black hole's entropy depends on its surface area — as though all the information in its three-dimensional interior is stored on its two-dimensional surface. (The 'holographic' label is an allusion to ordinary holograms, where 3-D images are coated on a 2-D surface, like an emblem on a credit card.) The holographic principle has value because in some cases the math for a complex 3-D system (neglecting time) can be too hard to solve, but the equivalent 4-D math provides simpler equations to describe the same phenomena.'"

Comments

Re:At least go to the original source...

[derrida]

Just testing the community reflections.

String theory is not a theory!

[MalleusEBHC]

Mathematical mental masturbation does not constitute a scientific theory. I need to see hypotheses and tests before I will even consider giving these models the honor of being called a theory.

And you wonder why so many people believe ID proponents when they say that Darwinian evolution is "only" a theory.

Re:Of course

[glitch23]

Kind of like creationism: "goddidit" 'explains' any observation, and therefore explains nothing.

No not quite. "goddidit" explains the who, sometimes the how, but science is responsible for determining the details as to how and possibly the why. Science is not separate from religion; it will merely prove what religion already says is out there and how it got here (to a point).