Steven Gubser, Princeton University

Topic: "Applied String Theory for the Impatient"  (Video)

ABSTRACT: The main application of string theory is to explain all of the fundamental physics in a single framework. Impatient theorists do not want to wait upon this program's full fruition to extract some useful information about experiment from string theory. I will discuss efforts to apply string theory to relativistic collisions of heavy nuclei and to high-temperature superconductors. I will emphasize apparent successes, such as shear viscosity, heavy-quark drag force, conductivity calculations, and ARPES spectra, but I will not entirely neglect reasons for skepticism about the string theory approaches.