Posted on 02/28/2007 8:44:44 AM PST by SunkenCiv
String theory, the doubters say, makes no testable predictions. But this isn't exactly true... A few years ago string practitioners attempted to establish a relationship between the 10-dimensional string world and the 4-dimensional (3 spatial dimensions plus time) world in which we observe interactions among quark-filled particles like protons... This duality between string theory and the theory of the strong nuclear force, quantum chromodynamics (QCD), was recently used to interpret puzzling early results from [Brookhaven's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider] ... Two new papers by Hong Liu and Krishna Rajagopal of (MIT) and Urs Wiedemann (CERN) address this problem. The first paper calculates a specific quark-suppression parameter (namely, how much the quarks, each attached to a string dangling "downward" into a fifth dimension, are pushed around as they traverse the quark-gluon plasma) that agrees closely with the experimentally observed value. Rajagopal... says that in the second paper, the same authors make a specific testable prediction using string theory that bears not just on missing jets of energetic light quarks... but on the melting or dissociation temperatures of bound states of heavy quarks... moving through the quark-gluon plasma with sufficiently high velocity, as will be produced in future experiments at RHIC and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) under construction at CERN.
(Excerpt) Read more at aip.org ...
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This may prove quite interesting. If it has merit, it may provide a good foundational proof for string theory as a whole.
ping
The Advertising Sketch
Adrian Wapcaplet: Aah, come in, come in, Mr....Simpson. Aaah, welcome to Mousebat, Follicle, Goosecreature, Ampersand, Spong, Wapcaplet, Looseliver, Vendetta and Prang!
Mr. Simpson: Thank you.
Wapcaplet: Do sit down--my name's Wapcaplet, Adrian Wapcaplet...
Mr. Simpson: how'd'y'do.
Wapcaplet: Now, Mr. Simpson... Simpson, Simpson... French, is it?
S: No.
W: Aah. Now, I understand you want us to advertise your washing powder.
S: String.
W: String, washing powder, what's the difference. We can sell *anything*.
S: Good. Well I have this large quantity of string, a hundred and twenty-two thousand *miles* of it to be exact, which I inherited, and I thought if I advertised it--
W: Of course! A national campaign. Useful stuff, string, no trouble there.
S: Ah, but there's a snag, you see. Due to bad planning, the hundred and twenty-two thousand miles is in three inch lengths.....So it's not very useful.
W: Well, that's our selling point! "SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL STRINGETTES!"
S: What?
W: "THE NOW STRING! READY CUT, EASY TO HANDLE, SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL EMPEROR STRINGETTES - JUST THE RIGHT LENGTH!"
S: For what?
W: "A MILLION HOUSEHOLD USES!"
S: Such as?
W: Uhmm...Tying up very small parcels, attatching notes to pigeons' legs, uh, destroying household pests...
S: Destroying household pests?! How?
W: Well, if they're bigger than a mouse, you can strangle them with it, and if they're smaller than, you flog them to death with it!
S: Well surely!....
W: "DESTROY NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF KNOWN HOUSEHOLD PESTS WITH PRE-SLICED, RUSTPROOF, EASY-TO-HANDLE, LOW CALORIE SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL EMPEROR STRINGETTES, FREE FROM ARTIFICIAL COLORING, AS USED IN HOSPITALS!"
S: Hospitals!?
W: Have you ever in a Hospital where they didn't have string?
S: No, but it's only string!
W: ONLY STRING?! It's everything! It's...it's waterproof!
S: No it isn't!
W: All right, it's water resistant then!
S: It isn't!
W: All right, it's water absorbent! It's...Super Absorbent String! "ABSORB WATER TODAY WITH SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL WATER ABSORB-A-TEX STRINGETTES! AWAY WITH FLOODS!"
S: You just said it was waterproof!
W: "AWAY WITH THE DULL DRUDGERY OF WORKADAY TIDAL WAVES! USE SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL FLOOD PREVENTERS!"
S: You're mad!
W: Shut up, shut up, shut up! Sex, sex sex, must get sex into it! Wait, I see a television commercial- There's this nude woman in a bath holding a bit of your string. That's great, great, but we need a doctor, got to have a medical opinion. There's a nude woman in a bath with a doctor--that's too sexy. Put an archbishop there watching them, that'll take the curse off it. Now, we need children and animals. There's two kids admiring the string, and a dog admiring the archbishop who's blessing the string. Uhh...international flavor's missing...make the archbishop Greek Orthodox. Why not Archbishop Macarios? No, no, he's dead... nevermind, we'll get his brother, it'll be cheaper... So, there's this nude woman....
With all due respect, my quarks are seldom missing a jet.
....JJ61
I could be mistaken, but I seem to recall Lisa Randall making this predict n her recent book. It also may imply that a 20 meter black hole (or was that a donut) could snap into existence when the LHC experiments happen.
I've always loved that one. :')
My view is that this is damage control, brought on by this:
String Theory's Extra Dimensions Must Be Less Than Half the Width of a Human Hair
Scientific American | January 16, 2007 | JR Minkel
Posted on 01/17/2007 1:06:00 AM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1768742/posts
related:
Physicists Develop Test for String Theory
Space Daily | Jan 25, 2007 | Staff Writers
Posted on 01/25/2007 12:01:26 PM EST by Ben Mugged
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1773567/posts
Large Hadron Collider: Does every particle in the universe consist of points, strings, or loops?
iTWire | Thursday, January 18, 2007 | William Atkins
Posted on 01/18/2007 4:15:35 AM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1769410/posts
New particle accelerator could rule out string theory [ Large Hadron Collider ]
New Scientist | February 1, 2007 | David Shiga
Posted on 02/03/2007 4:18:18 PM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1778727/posts
Physicists find way to 'see' extra dimensions
University of Wisconsin-Madison | February 2, 2007 | Jill Sakai
Posted on 02/03/2007 4:23:00 PM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1778729/posts
Question for you: If a black hole or donut does come into existence when the LHC experiments happen, how does one get rid of such a beastie without it consuming this panet, etc.?
"Mmmm, donuts!"
"black hole" site:lanl.gov(letter to the editor)I wanted to say I'm a big fan of Mike Smith's weekly column - it's the most entertaining in the paper - but I think there were some inaccuracies in last week's article.
by Aaron Zimmerman
Daily Lobo
First of all, I highly doubt Los Alamos National Laboratory has manufactured tiny black holes in its laser-fusion experiments. This would be very big news in the physics world, as it would finally provide an experimental test for string theory, a proposed theory meant to unify all of physics into a single set of equations.
Some theorists suggest that if string theory is true, particle accelerators would create such tiny black holes in the near future. But there is little chance it's happened yet. Smith should cite a paper where such results have been published.
That major point aside, I'd also like to point out that if such tiny black holes did exist, they would have no chance of destroying much of anything. Take, as an example, a 1 kilogram black hole. An estimate based on an equation in Spacetime and Geometry, a book by Sean M. Carroll, shows that such a black hole would vanish in such a small time that even light would be able to travel only a few hundredths the diameter of an atom. There would be no time for anything to get inside this black hole. And 1 kilogram is really an insanely huge mass on the scale of particle accelerators.
The only way to create a more stable and dangerous black hole would be to compress more mass - a lot more mass. This is - and probably always will be - beyond our abilities here on Earth.
That particular explanation is only minimally reassuring. But thank you for posting it for me.
String theory?
RHIC???
All I care about is where Anna Nicole Smith bought her carbon offsets.
She is a carbon offset ... or is that a silicon offset?
There's another explanation, but it occurs in Woody Allen's "Deconstructing Harry"...
I sold 'em to her when we were done makin' a baby...
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