INNER SPACE

Professor proposes theory of unparticle physics

Howard Georgi, a physicist at Harvard University, has recently published a paper on so-called unparticle physics, which suggests the existence of “unparticle stuff” that cannot be accounted for by the standard model. Appearing in a recent edition of Physical Review Letters, the paper says that unparticle stuff would be very different than anything seen before.

Georgi – a pioneer in supersymmetry, quantum chromodynamics, and grand unified theories – explains that the low-energy physics of nontrivial scale-invariance cannot be described in terms of particles. In this initial investigation of the idea, he gives a quantitative scenario of the production of unparticle stuff, and predicts how it could be experimentally detected in the upcoming Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator that will open in early 2008.

In many ways, science is all about finding the meaning in the mysteries of math.