Mathematical Digest
Short Summaries of Articles about Mathematics
in the Popular Press
"The Frontier of Knowledge," by David Gross and Edward Witten. Editorial,
Wall Street Journal, 12 July 1996.
String theory, the authors argue, promises a revolution in physics as profound
as that caused by the formulation of general relativity and quantum mechanics.
The central assertion of string theory is that matter consists not of point
particles but of tiny, vibrating strings. Right now string theory lacks
experimental verification, but experimental particle physicists are starting to
detect hints of supersymmetry, one of the basic predications of string theory.
Supersymmetry, the authors write is a "largely unprobed structure" in nature
that would point to "a while new `quantum' dimension of space-time." The
article mourns the termination of the Superconducting Supercollider and reviews
the potential of existing particle accelerators and other research projects to
carry out the experiments necessary to detect supersymmetry.
-Allyn Jackson
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