So – now we need some evidence of strings. Get to work, boffins…
Sadly the energy requirements to start to see the unification of gravity with the three other forces, are beyond current technology. About 14 orders of magnitude higher than those accessible in the LHC.
If you are old enough, you will recall in the 1980’s that the new W and Z bosons were discovered at CERN by smashing electrons and positrons together (predicted by Weinberg-Salam model). To get to the predicted Higgs particle energies required that heavier stuff be smashed together – enter protons and antiprotons (1800x heavier). So the LHC can achieve energies of about three orders of magnitude higher than LEP.
Now to get another 14 orders of magnitude of energy, we need something 10^14 times heavier, charged and accelerated to all but the speed of light. That particle would weigh about 10^-15 grammes and would need a negative counterpart. Plus the energy of a billion billion more power stations to accelerate it…
Hence my comment about the end of experimental Particle Physics.
Some nice perspective on Nobel prizes from Frank Close. Sent Tom a congratulatory email already.