Andrew Strominger

I think that with string theory...

I don't think it's likely that we could measure it, but we could get lucky.

In other words, just to take an example, about 10 or 20 years ago, it was thought that they had seen a string in the sky and that it was seen by, you know, doubled stars that were gravitationally lensed around the gravitational field produced by some long string.

There was a line of double lensed stars.

Now, the signal went away, okay?

But...

People were hoping that they'd seen a string, and it could be a fundamental string that had somehow gotten stretched, and that would be some evidence for string theory.

There was also BICEP2, which the experiment was wrong, but it could have happened.

It could have happened that we got lucky and this experiment was able to make direct measurements.

Certainly would have been measurements of quantum gravity, if not string theory.

So it's a very logical possibility that we could get experimental evidence from string.

That is a very different thing than saying, do this experiment, here's a billion dollars, and after you do it, we'll know whether or not strings are real.

But I think it's a crucial difference.

It's measurable in principle, and we don't see how to get from here to there.

If we see how to get from here to there, in my eyes, it's boring, right?

So when I was a graduate student, they knew how to measure the Higgs boson.

It took 40 years, but they did it.

Not to say that stuff is boring.

I don't want to say that stuff is boring.

But when Magellan set out, he didn't know he could get around the world.