http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of general relativity are both extremely accurate theories of how the universe works, but all attempts to combine the two into a unified theory have ended in failure. When physicists try to calculate the properties of a quantum theory of gravity, they find quantities that become infinite -- infinities that are so bad they can't be removed by mathematical gambits that work in other areas of physics. http://www.physorg.com/news169733869.html Physics Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:18:47 EST news169733869 Promising photonic devices, and theorists attempt to determine whether particle physics and string theory can be reconciled. http://www.physorg.com/news172732219.html Physics Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:10:02 EST news172732219 String theory has come under fire in recent years. Promises have been made that have not been lived up to. Leiden (The Netherlands) theoretical physicists have now for the first time used string theory to describe a physical phenomenon. Their discovery has been reported in Science Express. http://www.physorg.com/news166097923.html Physics Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:19:17 EST news166097923 Ernest Rutherford used to tell his physics students that if they couldn't explain a concept to a barmaid, they didn't really understand the concept. With regard to the cosmological implications of string theory, the barmaids and physicists are both struggling -a predicament that SLAC string theorist Shamit Kachru hopes to soon resolve. http://www.physorg.com/news112545705.html Physics Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:41:45 EST news112545705 Ancient light absorbed by neutral hydrogen atoms could be used to test certain predictions of string theory, say cosmologists at the University of Illinois. Making the measurements, however, would require a gigantic array of radio telescopes to be built on Earth, in space or on the moon. http://www.physorg.com/news120746536.html Physics Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:42:16 EST news120746536 Superstring theory aims to explain the laws of physics from extremely small strings in various states. Theoretical superstring theory is therefore normally not considered to be particularly relevant for practical particle physics experiments. http://www.physorg.com/news176125202.html Physics Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:42:37 EST news176125202 For decades, scientists have taken issue with `string theory` -a theory of the universe which contends that the fundamental forces and matter of nature can be reduced to tiny one-dimensional filaments called strings -because it does not make predictions that can be tested. http://www.physorg.com/news88786651.html Physics Tue, 23 Jan 2007 14:57:31 EST news88786651 Detractors of string theory have been deriding it for years, claiming that there is no way to test it. However, with a paper published in Physical Review Letters titled `Falsifying Models of New Physics via WW Scattering`, that could change. Coauthors Jacques Distler at the University of Austin in Texas, Benjamin Grinstein from the University of California, San Diego, and Rafael A. Porto and Ira Z. Rothstein at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, address a way of falsifying some models of string theory in their Letter. http://www.physorg.com/news89894430.html Physics Mon, 05 Feb 2007 10:40:30 EST news89894430 What do a centuries old gambling puzzle, thread and catastrophic failure have in common" A simple experiment conducted by Kent State chemical physics professor Peter Palffy-Muhoray and graduate student Jake Fontana reveals the answer. http://www.physorg.com/news106487357.html Physics Thu, 16 Aug 2007 12:49:17 EST news106487357 At the beginning of the last century, Albert Einstein posited a now famous theory that forever linked geometry and fundamental physics. According to general relativity, spacetime is curved, and that curvature affects the behavior of matter, and vice versa. http://www.physorg.com/news70021180.html Physics Tue, 20 Jun 2006 11:19:40 EST news70021180 `As is often the case in science, everybody contributes their piece, forming a complete picture only after years hard work,` Amanda Weltman tells PhysOrg.com. Weltman, a scientist at the University of Cape Town and at Cambridge University, believes that she and her collaborators have found another piece of that puzzle, especially with regard to string theory. `We took a tool developed in quantum field theory and adapted it to study stringy physics.` http://www.physorg.com/news112963812.html Physics Tue, 30 Oct 2007 11:50:12 EST news112963812 (PhysOrg.com) -- A Harvard theoretical physicist has discussed with scientists at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland the possibility that they may discover a theorized "stau" particle, with a lifetime of a minute or so, that could provide the first experimental confirmation of string theory. http://www.physorg.com/news177262216.html Physics Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:34:37 EST news177262216 *Under Certain ConditionsString theory solves many of the questions wracking the minds of physicists, but it has one major flaw - there are currently no known methods to test it. SLAC scientists have found a way to test a particular version of this revolutionary theory. The test applies to a class of critical string theories which posit that there are 10 or 11 dimensions in our universe - no more, no less. http://www.physorg.com/news10682.html Physics Wed, 08 Feb 2006 16:08:07 EST news10682 The dream of theoretical physics is to unite behind a common theory that explains everything, but that goal has remained highly elusive. String theory emerged 40 years ago as one of the most promising candidates for such a theory, and has since slipped in and out of favour as new innovations have occurred. http://www.physorg.com/news105274214.html Physics Thu, 02 Aug 2007 11:50:14 EST news105274214 String theory - the concept that all particles can be represented as strings or string-loops of incredibly minute length, oscillating at various frequencies - was initially developed to help explain why quarks, the tiny fundamental particles that make up protons and neutrons, are always confined within larger composite particles. However, string theory has evolved to allow scientists to deal with some wider issues. For example, they can use string theory to devise explanations for some grand problems in cosmology, such as the state of the universe - its shape, size, etc. - just after the Big Bang, when quarks roamed freely. http://www.physorg.com/news63041667.html Physics Fri, 31 Mar 2006 15:34:27 EST news63041667