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| Meta Title | String theory: The fightback | New Scientist |
| Meta Description | It's the theory everyone loves to hate. Depending on who you ask these days, string theory is either untestable, disconnected from reality or not even science. Right? Not so fast. While critics have been chipping away at its claim to be a "theory of everything", string theorists themselves have realised they must find ways to … |
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| Boilerpipe Text | It’s the theory everyone loves to hate.
Depending on who you ask these days, string theory is either untestable, disconnected from reality or not even science. Right?
Not so fast. While critics have been chipping away at its claim to be a “theory of everything”, string theorists themselves have realised they must find ways to put their models to the test. They may still be far from being able to observe a string in a laboratory, but experiments planned for the near future – and even one currently under way – could provide tantalising evidence either for or against string theory.
Ever since the development of the two main pillars of modern physics – Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which describes how gravity sculpts the universe at large, and quantum mechanics, which describes how subatomic particles behave – their incompatibility has had researchers hunting for a deeper theory to unify them. Many have thought that string theory, which emerged in the 1970s, is the
most promising candidate
because it is a quantum explanation of gravity, albeit one with flaws.
According to string theory, all particles and forces arise from vibrations of tiny string-like objects. What appear to us as electrons, protons or even gravity are in fact the same thing, but wiggling about in different ways. In order to produce such variety, strings have to wiggle in more complex patterns than are possible in three dimensions, so string theory requires at least six additional ones. To have gone unnoticed all this time, these dimensions must be curled up like submicroscopic origami. What’s more, the number of forms that this origami can take is truly… |
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# String theory: The fightback
By [Amanda Gefter](https://www.newscientist.com/author/amanda-gefter/)
11 July 2007
ES Leer en Español
It’s the theory everyone loves to hate.
Depending on who you ask these days, string theory is either untestable, disconnected from reality or not even science. Right?
Not so fast. While critics have been chipping away at its claim to be a “theory of everything”, string theorists themselves have realised they must find ways to put their models to the test. They may still be far from being able to observe a string in a laboratory, but experiments planned for the near future – and even one currently under way – could provide tantalising evidence either for or against string theory.
Ever since the development of the two main pillars of modern physics – Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which describes how gravity sculpts the universe at large, and quantum mechanics, which describes how subatomic particles behave – their incompatibility has had researchers hunting for a deeper theory to unify them. Many have thought that string theory, which emerged in the 1970s, is the [most promising candidate](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19426045-800-string-theory-its-not-dead-yet) because it is a quantum explanation of gravity, albeit one with flaws.
According to string theory, all particles and forces arise from vibrations of tiny string-like objects. What appear to us as electrons, protons or even gravity are in fact the same thing, but wiggling about in different ways. In order to produce such variety, strings have to wiggle in more complex patterns than are possible in three dimensions, so string theory requires at least six additional ones. To have gone unnoticed all this time, these dimensions must be curled up like submicroscopic origami. What’s more, the number of forms that this origami can take is truly…
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| Readable Markdown | It’s the theory everyone loves to hate.
Depending on who you ask these days, string theory is either untestable, disconnected from reality or not even science. Right?
Not so fast. While critics have been chipping away at its claim to be a “theory of everything”, string theorists themselves have realised they must find ways to put their models to the test. They may still be far from being able to observe a string in a laboratory, but experiments planned for the near future – and even one currently under way – could provide tantalising evidence either for or against string theory.
Ever since the development of the two main pillars of modern physics – Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which describes how gravity sculpts the universe at large, and quantum mechanics, which describes how subatomic particles behave – their incompatibility has had researchers hunting for a deeper theory to unify them. Many have thought that string theory, which emerged in the 1970s, is the [most promising candidate](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19426045-800-string-theory-its-not-dead-yet) because it is a quantum explanation of gravity, albeit one with flaws.
According to string theory, all particles and forces arise from vibrations of tiny string-like objects. What appear to us as electrons, protons or even gravity are in fact the same thing, but wiggling about in different ways. In order to produce such variety, strings have to wiggle in more complex patterns than are possible in three dimensions, so string theory requires at least six additional ones. To have gone unnoticed all this time, these dimensions must be curled up like submicroscopic origami. What’s more, the number of forms that this origami can take is truly… |
| Shard | 9 (laksa) |
| Root Hash | 443924557768237609 |
| Unparsed URL | com,newscientist!www,/article/mg19526121-200-string-theory-the-fightback/ s443 |