Since every blogger seems to feel it necessary to have a year-in-review posting, I thought it appropriate to point out that 2011 has been a banner year for string theory and related hype, with about twice as many editions of “This Week’s Hype” as in previous years. One reason for this is the LHC. When talking to journalists, string theorists are rarely willing to admit that the hopes of the past couple decades that string theory would make some predictions about LHC energy scale physics turned out to be a dismal failure, and this tends to lead to confused headlines. Besides the LHC though, there’s a huge on-going effort to promote other bogus “tests of string theory”. This has been going on since string theory’s lack of testability problem first started to get a lot of attention a few years ago. I see no reason for either of these two driving forces to weaken in 2012, so expect more editions of “This Week’s Hype” next year.<\/p>\n
String theory supported by early LHC heavy ion results<\/a><\/p>\n Cosmologists expect the LHC to turn up evidence for the multiverse<\/a><\/p>\n M-theory shows that the LHC will be the world’s first time machine<\/a><\/p>\n Neutrons could test string theory<\/a><\/p>\n Octonions explain string theory<\/a><\/p>\n The LHC tests string theory (more heavy ions)<\/a><\/p>\n M-theory is a big success, predicts behavior of 4 qubits<\/a><\/p>\n String theory and heavy ions, yet again<\/a><\/p>\n Multiverse observed in the CMB – Not<\/a><\/p>\n String theorists suggest space wormholes possible<\/a><\/p>\n String theory testable with black holes and pulsars<\/a><\/p>\n String phenomenologists come up with predictions testable at the LHC<\/a><\/p>\n Superluminal neutrinos evidence for string theory<\/a><\/p>\n Superluminal neutrinos could be explained by string theory<\/a><\/p>\n CMS multi-leptons provide evidence for SUSY<\/a><\/p>\n A new laser will tear apart the fabric of space<\/a><\/p>\n A nuclear clock will test string theory<\/a><\/p>\n The LHC will decide between two versions of SUSY<\/a><\/p>\n String theory research is going well, only problems are Garrett Lisi, Lee Smolin and Peter Woit<\/a>.<\/p>\n Gordy Kane predicts the mass of the Higgs using string theory, just days before the announcement<\/a><\/p>\n Superstring theory predicts three space dimensions<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since every blogger seems to feel it necessary to have a year-in-review posting, I thought it appropriate to point out that 2011 has been a banner year for string theory and related hype, with about twice as many editions of … Continue reading