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Consider how differently the public treats physics and economics. Physicists can say that this week they think the universe has eleven dimensions, three of which are purple, and two of which are twisted clockwise, and reporters will quote them unskeptically, saying "Isn't that cool!" But if economists say, as they have for centuries, that a minimum wage raises unemployment, reporters treat them skeptically and feel they need to find a contrary quote to "balance" their story.

For many years, I’ve been a big fan of string theory, also known as superstring theory. A year and a half ago, I discovered a fascinating television program on PBS Nova, The Elegant Universe, that changed the way I looked at life around me... The show was split into 3-1 hour segments, in which I only caught the last 2; I found myself frantically calling PBS to obtain the DVD. It was like no other science program that I had ever watched; It was creative, had stunning visual effects and examples, and kept my full attention throughout the entire 3...

A U.S. high school senior has won the grand prize scholarship in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology for his research in mathematics. Dmitry Vaintrob of South Eugene High School in Eugene, Ore., was named Monday the winner of the $100,000 top math prize scholarship for his research in an abstract new area of mathematics called string topology. Seniors Scott Molony, Steven Arcangeli and Scott Horton from Oak Ridge High School in Oak Ridge, Tenn., will share the $100,000 prize in the team category for developing a technique that might help scientists engineer biofuel from plants. The awards...

Many scientists never liked it anyway, and now Glenn Starkman from Oxford/Case Western and Roberto Trotta from Oxford show that too many details—and too many unknowns—mean that anthropic reasoning gives inconsistent values of the cosmological constant, some that are far from current estimates. In their recent paper, "Why Anthropic Reasoning Cannot Predict Lambda" (Physical Review Letters), Starkman and Trotta find that different ways of defining the probability of observers in different universes leads to vastly different predictions of the cosmological constant... According to the Anthropic Principle, the fact that we are here to observe the universe explains why the laws...

According to string theory, the universe is composed of tiny, vibrating strings rather than point-like particles. Depending on a particular string's mode of vibration, it would take on the characteristics of some particular particle -- an electron, for example, or a photon of light... In its latest incarnation it is known as "M-Theory," in which one-dimensional strings are replaced by higher-dimensional membranes, or "branes" for short. Although some of these branes may be microscopic, others could be large, or perhaps even infinite -- with important implications for cosmology... While string theory begins with matter, loop quantum gravity begins with space...

In the time-travel thriller directed by Tony Scott, Washington stars as a federal agent investigating the bombing of a ferryboat full of sailors. Intrigued by one of the terrorist's victims (Paula Patton), he gets a chance to alter the day's tragic outcome after being recruited by a covert government surveillance lab capable of bending time and space. "Thank God I didn't have to play a scientist," Washington says, laughing. "They sent me some stuff on black hole theory by that scientist in the wheelchair -- Stephen Hawking -- and I didn't know what they're talking about." In the movie, researchers...

The existence of black holes is perhaps the most fascinating prediction of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. When any mass, such as a star, becomes more compact than a certain limit, its own gravity becomes so strong that the object collapses to a singular point, a black hole. In the popular mind, this immense gravity well is a place where strange things happen. And now, a Center for Astrophysics-led team has measured a black hole spinning so rapidly - turning more than 950 times per second - that it pushes the predicted speed limit for rotation. "I would say that...

Hyperbolic space is an unimaginable concept, unless you're a Latvian mathematician who's handy with needle and yarn. ___ On a Thursday night in Ithaca, New York, Daina Taimina, an ebullient blond mathematician at Cornell University, sits at her kitchen table with her husband, David Henderson, a Cornell professor of geometry. In front of her sits a big Chinese bowl filled with crinkled forms made of gray, blue, red, and purple yarn. Reaching into the bowl, Taimina pulls out a woozy multicolored surface, the likes of which would have delighted Dr. Seuss. "This is an octagon with a 45 degree angle...

When played together, they compose the symphony of the universe. Or at least, that's the theory. There's a problem, though. The strings have too much range. So much, in fact, that for string theory to agree with the established laws of physics and mathematics, there must be not three but at least ten dimensions (including time) that are curled up and tucked away. And because each of these multidimensional landscapes requires a different string tuning, there are potentially billions and billions of different versions of string theory relating to billions and billions of different universes. Then there's the problem of...

In 1676, Isaac Newton explained his accomplishments through a simple metaphor. "If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of giants," he wrote. The image wasn't original to him, but in using it Newton reinforced a way of thinking about scientific progress that remains popular: We learn about the world though the vision of a few colossal figures... "The main difference today is there are so many people working on these deep problems," the physicist Brian Greene said recently. In one 15-page span of his best-selling book "The Elegant Universe" (1999), Greene mentions 24 scientists whose...

The essential claim of string theory is that what we perceive as electrons, photons and other sub-atomic particles are actually tiny one-dimensional snippets of energy vibrating furiously in 11 dimensions. The theory seemed, at first, to offer a promising path forward toward the goal of seamlessly melding relativity and quantum mechanics because it overcame mathematical problems that had dogged earlier efforts at reconciliation. Sadly, reality has turned out to be at odds with the dreams of string theorists. For starters, there seems to be no possible way to test string theory experimentally... More ominously, out of the deep mathematical recesses...

Dark energy - the mysterious force that is speeding up the expansion of the Universe - has been a part of space for at least nine billion years. That is the conclusion of astronomers who presented results from a three-year study using the Hubble Space Telescope. The finding may rule out some competing theories that predict the strength of dark energy changes over time. Dark energy makes up about 70% of the Universe; the rest is dark matter (25%) and normal matter (5%). "It appears this dark energy was already boosting the expansion of the Universe as much as...

Now a group of astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that billions of years before this mysterious antigravity overcame cosmic gravity and sent the galaxies scooting apart like muscle cars departing a tollbooth, it was already present in space, affecting the evolution of the cosmos... The new results, Dr. Riess and others said, provide new clues and place new limits on the nature of dark energy, a mystery that has thrown physics and cosmology into turmoil over the last decade... The data suggest that in fact dark energy has changed little, if at all, over the course of...

Why is it that string theory has become such a favoured paradigm? Have theoretical physicists deluded themselves? Have they been pressured by social forces to blind themselves to other possible theories? Is there a behind-the-scenes string-theory conspiracy that is propping up a pseudoscientific house of cards? ...An essential criterion is whether there is experimental evidence to support the theory. We have a description, called the Standard Model of particle physics, which agrees with observations exceedingly well, with a few small exceptions. A reactionary could ask, since the present model works so well, why bother to look for something new? From...

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The Belle collaboration at the KEK laboratory in Japan has discovered a new sub-atomic particle which it is calling the "X(3872)". The particle does not fit into any known particle scheme and theorists are speculating that it might be a hitherto unseen type of meson that contains four quarks (arxiv.org/abs/hep-ex/0309032; Phys. Rev. Lett. to be published). The discovery has been confirmed by the CDF collaboration at Fermilab in the US, where the new particle is being called the "mystery meson". Mesons are particles that contain a quark and an antiquark that are held together by the strong nuclear force. Since...

In part 2 of the interview, Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees discusses the limits to our knowledge of what might have preceded the big bang. Everyone asks the question: what was 'there' the instant before everything came to be?, but the question may not go as deep as the answers it spawns. Helen Matsos: Last year the big "science event" was measuring the cosmic microwave background and dating the big bang to 13.8 billion years ago, within an 8 to 10 percent margin of error. Can you give us some idea of the boundaries of the big bang -- what...

Lisa Randall has become a star in the rarefied world of high-energy physics, and her theory about a “fifth dimension” has caught the imagination of the general public too. That doesn’t mean she still isn’t shy and a little nervous about all the hoopla. “I really like that my work is getting more people interested in science,” says the 43-year old Harvard physicist. “And while it can get a little nerve-wracking dealing with all the attention, I really enjoy speaking to the public and answering questions.” Randall seems constantly in motion. She seldom sits still, and says her mind brims...

The European Space Agency is considering a unique experiment that could explain strange gravitational phenomena in the outer solar system. Since 1998 astronomers have known that the space probes Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 are following trajectories that cannot be explained by conventional physics. Launched in 1972 and 1973, respectively, to explore the outer planets, the Pioneer craft are now at the edge of the solar system, with Pioneer 10 being some 86 astronomical units (about 13 billion kilometres) from the Sun. But they are not quite where they should be, based on the gravitational pull of the known bodies...

SEARCH RESULTS Evidence for Universe Expansion FoundEvidence for Universe Expansion FoundScientists: Find explains how universe formedCold War gamma-ray mystery solved in a flashU.S. spacecraft set to study cosmic bursts Front page March 17, 2006, 12:51AMOldest light shows universe grew fast, researchers sayFirst stars arose 400 million years after big bang, not 200 million years, as once thought By DENNIS O'BRIEN Baltimore Sun Scientists examining the oldest light in the universe say they've found clear evidence that matter expanded at an almost inconceivable rate after the big bang, creating conditions that led to the formation of the first stars.Light from...