Theoretical Physics(DTP)
Physique théorique (DPT)
Nima ARKANI-HAMED
Harvard University
The Crises Of Frontier Physics: From The Hubble Length To The Planck Length
Our description of the basic interactions in nature, based on the standard model of particle physics and general relativity, is in spectacular agreement with all known experiments. However, it is almost certainly fundamentally incomplete. At very short distances, violent quantum-mechanical fluctuations imply a breakdown in our notion of space-time. Meanwhile, two striking clues from Nature suggest that we are missing important new physical principles: the extreme weakness of gravity relative to the other forces, as well as the extraordinary flatness of our observable universe, appear to require absurdly finely adjusted choices for various parameters of the theory. In this talk I will review attempts at addressing these mysteries, and discuss the ways in which these ideas will be tested experimentally in the coming decade.