![]() The partial nature of our understanding of string/M-theory has so far prevented any kind of smoking-gun experimental test. He gives a less-than-honest description of the problem with string theory: While the mathematical physics story Duff tells may be of some interest (to learn more about it, there are review articles here and here), unfortunately he can’t resist the temptation to shanghai it into service in the string wars. Besides the very complicated mathematics and physics, what I don’t understand about this is the claim that if the same classical algebraic structure gets used to do a calculation in string theory and in subject A, it means that string theory is being applied to subject A. There’s some remarkably obscure algebra involved, from exceptional structures such as E7, the octonions and the Fano plane to Cayley’s nineteenth century work on hyperdeterminants. The claim seems to be that since the same algebraic structures appear in black-hole entropy calculations in string theory and in the analysis of certain cases of the entanglement of qubits, this provides an application of string theory to Quantum Information theory. There’s a remarkable article by Mike Duff in this month’s CERN Courier, arguing the case that string theory does too have important applications: in Quantum Information Theory.
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