String Theory? Nah.

[Telarus]

http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/12/16/1423254/String-Theory-Tested-Fails-Black-Hole-Predictions

String Theory always sounded a bit _off_ to me. I wonder if this will lead to a re-structured theory, or just more wank.

[Requia ☣]

Part of the problem with string theory is that its trivial to adjust the theory to make it fit new observations.  So yes it will be refined, and match the new data, but its so easy to do this that its almost impossible to come up with an experiment that might disprove it.

[Telarus]

  Yeah, this is the only experimental data I've ever heard of that relates to string theory.

[Requia ☣]

Nah, they get data that relates to string theory all the time.  Some of the biggest gaps between prediction and observation ever recorded came from string theory (I believe they were off by 100 orders of magnitude at one point, something to do with dark energy).

[LMNO]

If you've been reading the LessWrong sequences, cross-reference String Theory with "Phlogiston".

[President Television]

If you've been reading the LessWrong sequences, cross-reference String Theory with "Phlogiston".

[Kai]

If you've been reading the LessWrong sequences, cross-reference String Theory with "Phlogiston".

This.

[Jasper]

I've been entertaining myself with model dependent realism lately, so I'm just going to slightly downgrade the theoretical usefulness of string theories in general, and strongly downgrade the ones whose predictions failed.

[Epimetheus]

I've been entertaining myself with model dependent realism lately, so I'm just going to slightly downgrade the theoretical usefulness of string theories in general, and strongly downgrade the ones whose predictions failed.

Made me think of modal realism, which I entertain myself with every day.

[Jasper]

Kinda sounds like the Evrett Interpretation of QM.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

The short of it is simply that as far as they could tell, 'No experimental evidence for microscopic black holes has been found.' The long statement indicates that since the highly precise CMS detector found no spray of sub-atomic particles of normal matter while LHC smashed particles together, the hypothesis by String Theory that micro black holes would be formed and quickly evaporated in this experiment was incorrect.

Now this doesn't necessarily show that microscopic black-holes don't form under those conditions. It sounds plausible to me that a micro black-hole could have formed but not evaporated, falling instead through the accelerator into the center of the Earth, where it will grow and fester until eventually Richard sharpe Shaver is proven correct, at which point we'll all be royally screwed