Physicists Develop Test for 'String Theory'

Physicists Develop Test for 'String Theory':

For decades, scientists have taken issue with “string theory”—a theory of the universe which contends that the fundamental forces and matter of nature can be reduced to tiny one-dimensional filaments called strings—because it does not make predictions that can be tested.

But researchers at the University of California, San Diego, Carnegie Mellon University, and The University of Texas at Austin have now developed an important test for this controversial “theory of everything.”

Described in a paper that will appear in the January 26 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters, their test involves measurements of how elusive high-energy particles scatter during particle collisions. Most physicists believe those collisions will be observable at the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, a subatomic particle collider scheduled to be operating later this year at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, or CERN.

“Our work shows that, in principle, string theory can be tested in a non-trivial way,” explained Ira Rothstein, co-author of the paper and professor of physics at Carnegie Mellon.

Technorati tags: string theory, high energy physics