Gates replies: A longer article would have indicated that the advance of the energy frontier is a complicated function. Henry Frisch has made reasonable suggestions for some of its independent variables.
Though possessing a career-long interest in supersymmetry, I recall from graduate school that given a scatter-plot of data to make a linear fit to a complicated function, one generally does better using the longest possible baseline. Thus, my estimate is likely the more accurate. Besides, when a theorist finds a number that is correct to within an order of magnitude, victory is usually declared.
Researchers excited by superstring/M-theory are foremost and thoroughly dedicated and well-trained physicists . Accordingly, they are rooting most enthusiastically for the success of their experimentally driven colleagues, if for no other reason than the opportunity for vindication. It would be a point of great pride to have clearly perceived “the mind of God.”
