Discussion on the testability of beyond the standard model physics concepts

Question

This discussion got started below Dimension10s answer to a question about current open problems in string theory and LQG

Comments

At least LQG has been falsified, as the saying goes:"I don't think it's even wrong..." about string theory.

:-D

---

@MathematicalPhysicist The saying is not correct for string theory -- string theory makes concrete, testable predictions although the landscape is admittedly large.

---

@dimension10 what are those predictions?

Extra hidden dimensions? I heard that current technology isn't capable of probing this claim, and that it would take energies which seem not plausible in the near future.

Theoreitcally testable, and practically testable are two disjoint things; even Einstein's GR was theoretically testable untill they directly tested it.

---

@MathematicalPhysicist I'm talking about theoretical testability. "Not even wrong", that is not being scientific, entails being theoretically untestable.

By the way, these probably aren't all so far away after all -- we've only tested the inverse-square law (the standard test for extra dimensions) up to the scale of about 0.1mm, and many people believe that the LHC might be able to detect SUSY quite soon. N = 1 is not at all far from our currently accessible energy scales.

---

@dimension10 But if SUSY isn't detected then does it mean the end of SUSY?

---

@MathematicalPhysicist Of the specific SUSY models tested, that is the specific energies tested, yes. But this is not a lack of falsifiability in SUSY any more than the infinite parameter space of the Standard Model is a problem with the Standard Model.

@Dilaton I don't think off-topic discussions are as big a problem now that we have comment autocollapsing, but if you find a problem with it, I'm fine with having it moved to chat.

---

@dimension10 can you elaborate on the " infinite parameter space of the Standard Model " issue? thanks in advance.

---

@MathematicalPhysicist I meant the 25 dimensionless constants of the standard model, which creates an landspace which is an infinite 25-dimensional space. Same thing for the standard model of cosmology for example, which has one dimensionless constant (the cosmological constant), again completely unexplained with non-stringy physics.

The ratio of the size of the string landscape to that of the standard model is exactly 0:1 :-)