Over the years, string theory has simultaneously become more frustrating and fabulous. On the one hand, the original theory has become mind-bogglingly complex, one that posits an 11-dimensional universe (far more than the four- dimensional universe of Einstein). The modified theory is so mathematically dense that many Ph.D.-bearing physicists haven't a clue what their string- theorist colleagues are talking about.

On the other hand, new versions of the theory suggest our universe is just one of zillions of alternate, invisible -- perhaps even inhabited -- universes where the laws of physics are radically different. String buffs claim this bizarre hypothesis might help to explain various cosmic mysteries.

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But skeptics suggest it's the latest sign of how string theorists, sometimes called "superstringers," try to colorfully camouflage the theory's flaws, like "a 50-year-old woman wearing way too much lipstick," jokes Robert B. Laughlin, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at Stanford. "People have been changing string theory in wild ways because it has never worked."

# posted by Gerry Canavan @ 1:47 PM  |