Verification of the String Theory – The Dooms Day Gets Postponed

For want of a more suitable title of this article, the string theory and the dooms day are invoked in the above title. To state it simply, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which was anxiously awaited by the physicists with their fingers crossed and mouths open, to start operating this summer could not start as originally scheduled. The collider will provide data that will enable the physicists to understand how the universe began to exist among several other important issues that have eluded verification (one way or the other). For example, it will provide data to check if the string theory is correct and thus the nomenclature of Theory of Everything has any meaning or is completely meaningless. And whether there are indeed ten or eleven esoteric dimensions which are required by the string theory or only the four with which we are familiar. It might also explain as to why gravity is a much weaker force than the other three fundamental forces which have
been unified into a single force by the GUT (Grand Unified Theory). It might also explain the mystery of the Higgs mechanism.

The construction of the LHC was completed on schedule and when it was put into operation in September 2008, a malfunction caused a leak of six tones of liquid helium necessitating a shutdown. It is expected that the required repairs will be completed in a few months and the LHC will be restarted in the summer of 2009.

I had published an article, Search of the God Particle, on November 29, 2007, at Chowk and concluded, “we are not quite there yet although we’ll be there next year or soon after.� As it has turned out, we will have to wait for the “soon after�.

The LHC is contained in a circular tunnel of about 27 kilometer and is located some 50 to 175 meter underground. The tunnel “contains two adjacent parallel beam pipes that intersect at four points, each containing a proton beam, which travel in opposite directions around the ring,� (Large Hadron Collider, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider). The protons will travel at almost the speed of light and will collide with a “big bang.� Some people have expressed the fear that the collision might produce some tiny stable black holes threatening human life on the planet earth. As a result of these concerns, CERN commissioned two safety reviews of these experiments which concluded “that the experiments at the LHC present no danger and there is no reason for concern,� (Large Hadron Collider, wikipedia).

With the postponement of the operation of the LHC, the moment of truth is delayed. Not only the physicists but the world at large are anxiously waiting for the operation of the LHC because so much is on the line.