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Physics News Update
Number 5 (Story #4), October 18, 1990 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein

THE SUPERSTRING THEORY ,sometimes referred to as the "theory of everything" since it apparently unifies all four known forces into a single framework, has been criticized on the grounds that it is not testable. Now theorists Dimitri Nanopoulos of Texas A&M University and John Ellis of the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland assert that their version of the theory is open to experimental verification. In particular, they claim that soon they may be able to calculate the mass of neutrinos, or the lifetime of protons; they may be able to predict the existence of new particles not yet observed, including a new class of non-radiating particles, "cryptons," which, if they exist, might account for some of the "missing mass" in the universe. (Science News, October 13, 1990; Nanopoulos: 409-845-7790.)