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Large Hadron Collider proves physics still meaningful: Dumps string theory

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Cosmologies come and go ... this is, roughly Aristotle's universe, 300 BC

At BBC News (August 27, 2011), Pallab Ghosh reports “LHC results put supersymmetry theory ‘on the spot’” :

Results from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have all but killed the simplest version of an enticing theory of sub-atomic physics.

Researchers failed to find evidence of so-called “supersymmetric” particles, which many physicists had hoped would plug holes in the current theory.

Promising:

“The fact that we haven’t seen any evidence of it tells us that either our understanding of it is incomplete, or it’s a little different to what we thought – or maybe it doesn’t exist at all,” he said.

Relax, Nash. If you’re willing to admit that maybe it doesn’t exist at all, you know you are doing physics. You could have been inventing a cosmology to suit yourselves, but we know there really is a cosmos out there if it doesn’t do what you expected.

Comments
In Penrose's words, M-theory isn't really a proper theory, since it makes no predictions and really hasn't been written in mathematical form. But no, SUSY is not really a test of string theory. It is a test of super-symmetry, which was proposed long before strings began to be popular. And if you want my rather biassed opinion, the lexical trick of adding an "s" to the names of the particles to indicate the supersymmetric counterpart--sneutrons, sprotons, selectrons etc-- was reason enough to reject it.Robert Sheldon
August 29, 2011
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I'm sorry that escapes me. Expressed in such general terms, I don't dispute it, but how do the responses to the Hadron Collider prove physics is still meaningful? Is it because of this statement? "Relax, Nash. If you’re willing to admit that maybe it doesn’t exist at all, you know you are doing physics....." The impression I have is that quantum physics is no nearer to discovering the mysterious force Planck referred to in his assertion: "As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." However, secular science's determination to pursue the blind alley of materialism triumphs over all. Or has until now.pbecke
August 27, 2011
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The M-theory itself causes problems for the M-theory.CannuckianYankee
August 27, 2011
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Interesting... Do any of these findings cause problems for the so called "M-theory"?melvinvines
August 27, 2011
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