A recent Science paper uses string theory to explain a physical phenomenon, though not in cosmology.

Link to R&D Magazine on-line review

Link to abstract

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One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

Here is the Arxiv paper http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/...904.1993v1.pdf

Now all they need is a test of a prediction, and string theory wont be a complete waste of time.

I take it that you have also had experience with the uncanny accuracy of post-test predictions.

Wha!? Not exactly a confidence builder on accuracy... they fixed it now though.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.

I should be a post doc in post hoc!

Good one!

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Woit suggests it is the usual misleading hype. http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=2172

The Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society has an excellent article from 2007--

on String Theory-- and it is written by one of the theory's proponents:

From superconductors and four-manifolds to weak interactions

The goal of this article is to describe the concept of ``gauge symmetry breaking'' and its applications to superconductors, four-manifold theory, and particle physics.

by Dr. Edward Witten


I'll give a partial list of references:

P. W. Anderson, ``Plasmons, Gauge Invariance, and Mass,'' Phys. Rev. 130 (1962) 439-442

V. Ginzburg and L. Landau, ``On the Theory of Superconductivity,'' JETP 20 (1950) 1064-1082.


LEP Electroweak Working Group, http://lepewwg.web.cern.ch/LEPEWWG/.

A. Salam and J. Ward, ``Electromagnetic and Weak Interactions,'' Phys. Lett. 13 (1964) 168-171


I don't pretend to understand it--but I will admit that as "fragmented" and incomprehensible (to some) String and M-theory appears...it seems to be making some headway (apparently)

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"The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
---Carl Sagan

It looks like they are making a prediction for what happens when an electron falls into a black hole. But can that be currently tested? My guess would be no, because black holes are seen from radiation emanating off a massive accretion disk around it. I don't see how the one electron prediction could be tested with this because isn't this more like a blackbody radiation?

I looked at the first 2 or 3 pages--can get a gist but don't know the meanings of many symbols (They throw around G, A, etc. with little explanation, must be some standard notation in the theory--they appear to be tensor fields, but that's about all I can guess). It looks as if (and I'm not certain of course) the paper doesn't really predict any observed phenomena, but shows evidence that string-theory computations have (in the words of the paper) the "capacity" to do so (in Fermionic statictics, where path integration that works for Bosonic statitistics has failed). In other words, I don't see a claim (which I'd expect in the abstract and the first section if it was actually done) that a testable prediction has actually been made.

They do mention a N-R black hole (some names starting with N and R, I forgot what they are), which I assume to be some model of a black hole (a string-theoretic model? or a more classical Einsteinian/Penrose/Hawking kind of model--i.e. one I'd have more confidence in?)

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

I happened to print "out" the article-- and I find it to be thick and incomprehensible, as well. I can (only hope) the authors are not attempting to pull the "wool" in front everyone's eyes. --but there are too many talented mathematicians and theoretical physicists who "should" be able to discern whether article is of merit or not. We should know shortly...by their pronouncements.

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"The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
---Carl Sagan

If all the papers written on string theory were to cross the event horizon of a black hole, and then it evaporates from Hawking radiation, would that decrease the confusion in information theory? pete

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A third rate theory forbids.
A second rate theory explains after the fact.
A first rate theory predicts.
A. Lomonosov

As you obviously know--as is often the case where there is a pressure to publish or perish...some will publish anything (even if incomprehensible). Is it possible to set aside some doubt that there may be a handful (maybe more?) of theoreticians who truly mean well? ( Where would science be without the likes of Drs. Einstein, Pauli, Dirac, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Feynman, Schwinger, Tomanga, Weinberg, Nash?) And even the new crowd of theoreticians: Witten, Taubes, Atiyah, -- (just to name a few)...

As I have tried to intimate in my own style (at times): why throw out the baby with the bath water-- even if one does not like children--per se?

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"The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
---Carl Sagan

Atiyah is one hell of a mathematician, but he is hardly new. He was 80 in April.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Atiyah

I only heard of him of him after seeing his lecture from the AMS catalog: The Mysteries of Space

A 60 minute lecture aimed for the general scientific audience

ISBN 978-0-8218-4391-8

Granted that the DVD is a 1992 lecture--but it is "somewhat" timely--just the same.

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"The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
---Carl Sagan

You might try "googling" the Atiyah-Singer Index theorem, or the Atiyah-Hirzebruch theorem.

Atiyah has been a well-know and powerful mathematician since the 1950's.

He is a winner of both the Fields Medal and the Abel Prize, either one of which is similar in stature for mathematicians to the Nobel Prize in the sciences.

That's a Reissner-Nordstrom black hole. Which is specifically a non-rotating, charged black hole. It comes from the more classical GR, so you might have more confidence in it. Although, since most black holes are thought to be rotating, the Kerr Black Hole (rotating, charged) is more likely the model.

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Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,... - Moody Blues.

Neptune- The original Dark Matter.

The author feels that this technique of deliberately lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. - Donald Knuth