Does the Malcadena make experimentally testable and falsifiable predictions?

[ensabah6]

Given the large number of citations, more than any other, even the 1967 Weinberg E-W paper,

Does the Malcadena conjuncture make experimentally testable and falsifiable predictions? I know it's being used to study glueballs of quarks and strong force.

If its prediction does match experiment, does this support string theory? If experiments falsify its' prediction than does this falsify the conjecture?

 

[Vanadium 50]

The Maldecana? Is that like the Macarena?

Juan made a comment once that I am still trying to wrap my head around: "It's better to do the right calculation in the wrong theory than the wrong calculation in the right theory."

 

[petergreat]

I also want to ask about this topic. One of the most celebrated success of AdS/CFT is the calculation of entropy/viscosity ratio of quark-gluon plasma. Is this a novel prediction of AdS/CFT or a result previously known to QCD physicists?

There are some very recent papers on applying AdS/CFT to high temperature superconductors that are being heavily cited. One of them is arXiv:0912.1061 by Hartnoll, Polchinski, Silverstein, and Tong. I won't be surprised if this becomes one of the hottest topics in the string circle for the next 5 years. The funniest thing that could happen (my evil wish) is that string theorists abandon their dream of unification, join condensed matter physicists' dream of understanding superconductors, and end up forgotten by future condensed matter physicist... Certainly, if they do instead have some spectacular success, it'll be fascinating.

 

[Demystifier]

The Maldecana? ...

Juan made a comment once that I am still trying to wrap my head around: "It's better to do the right calculation in the wrong theory than the wrong calculation in the right theory."

I have to put it on my list of best scientist quotes.

By the way, he didn't say Maldecana, but Malcadena. Which are both wrong, of course.

 

[Physics Monkey]

This isn't something I'd count on too much, but I do think that before AdS/CFT a substantial number of qcd people thought that RHIC might be weakly coupled because the energy density was predicted from lattice QCD to be pretty close to the free field theory result. For some of these people, one lesson of AdS/CFT has been that the energy density can be quite similar to a free theory while the transport (like viscosity) can be totally different (i.e. strongly coupled). A bit later, a somewhat heroic lattice calculation was attempted for the qcd viscosity and a result similar to the AdS/CFT result was found. But be warned, this is only my informal perspective on the situation. Along the lines of this "successful" transport prediction, holographic duality does permit predictions for various dyamical physical observables that don't seem to be accessible at the moment from any other framework. Predictions like enhanced J/psi supression, if verified, might provide a boost to AdS/CFT as a serious tool in real high energy physics. Of course, its already a huge industry just like string theory.

On the condensed matter side, there is much less reason to be excited in my opinion. The systems being described seem often quite far from realistic condensed matter systems and from the questions condensed matter theorists would like to answer.

 

[Naty1]

Juan made a comment once that I am still trying to wrap my head around: "It's better to do the right calculation in the wrong theory than the wrong calculation in the right theory."

He likely means the former leads to either a confirmation of the theory or not;that is they should be logically consistent. The latter leads nowhere.

 

[Naty1]

I'm not sure just what any testable predictions might be but,

In THE TROUBLE WITH PHYSICS, 2007, Lee Smolin says about Maldacena's conjecture:

It has so far not been proved, but a great deal of evidence has accumulated that there is at least an approximate correspondence between string theory and gauge theory.

(pg 142)

and also comments (pg 145)

If the correspondence between the two theories is exact...The gauge theory has neither horizons nor singularities and there is no place in which information can be lost. If it corresponds exactly to a spacetime with a black hole no informationcan be lost there, either. In the first case the observer loses information;in the second, he retains it. As of this writing, the issue has yet to be resolved.

 

[humanino]

The Maldacena conjecture is a mathematical statement. It's like saying there is an isomorphism between a circle and a square. I can be used for physics, but there is no physical assumption in the Maldacena conjecture, by itself it cannot be tested experimentally.