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Theoretical physicist: Towson test is testing only Einstein’s gravity, not string theory

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File:Calabi yau.jpg
5 dimensions in 2

Further to “A practical test for string theory?”, here’s theoretical physicist Matt Strassler’s assessment,

Sounds too good to be true, right? And it is.

They are testing the equivalence principle. But

But what’s that got to do with string theory? If you read their paper, you will notice that the word “String Theory” appears in only one obscure sentence in the introduction, referring to a very specific form of string theory [with an extremely light spin-zero field, called the dilaton], implying that their work might be relevant for string theory if we lived in a stringy universe that had such a field. Not even the conclusion, much less the bulk of the paper, mentions strings or string theory. That’s because the paper has nothing to do with testing string theory; it is merely testing Einstein’s theory of gravity. More.

Is it possible, however, that an announced finding can be jimmied to make it look like support for string theory?

See also: Science Fictions

Comments
"then does that" should probably read as "then would that"JGuy
January 15, 2014
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I don't know much about this... but would like to ask anyone that 'understands' the theory it regards: If this test does test one very specific form of string theory. And if the results are consistent with that very specific form, then does that disprove all other forms of string theory?JGuy
January 15, 2014
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