Being under attack is some kind of coming of age for string theory, according to a former skeptic turned convert in an article in the The Ottawa Citizen. Jim Cline, a string cosmologist, considers string theory to be the most likely framework to explain the world at a deeper level. String theory is based on the idea that the smallest known particles, such as electrons, are not really pointlike, but rather extended bits of “string.”In fact, present-day experiments can’t distinguish them from points. This is awkward for physicists, who judge the validity of a theory by experiment, since at the moment there is no direct evidence to say string theory is correct.
Such criticisms have been brought to the public eye recently in the book Not Even Wrong by mathematician Peter Woit. According to Woit, among the bogus claims are that string theory predicts:
-supersymmetry and extra dimensions and that the LHC will test these predictions
-observable effects in the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) and gravitational waves
And finally that:
-string theory makes predictions testable at RHIC
-the anthropic landscape predicts the value of the cosmological constant and will make other predictions
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