Stephen Hawking

Experiments at CERN will confirm supersymmetry by discovering superpartner particles.

“I expect super symmetry will be confirmed eventually by experiments at CERN in Geneva.”

Said on

6 March 1998 · White House Millennium Evening lecture "Imagination and Change: Science in the Next Millennium". No date given ("eventually"); inferred window runs through the LHC's first two data-taking runs (to end of 2018).

Source

Imagination and Change: Science in the Next Millennium · Clinton White House archive (NARA)

Should come true

by 2018

How sure they sounded

I expect ... eventually

Categories

Technology

Importance

3 of 5 · Supersymmetry underpins most unification attempts including string theory; its confirmation would reshape fundamental physics.

Outcome

Inaccurate

"Eventually" with no date; inferred window is the LHC's first two runs (through 2018), roughly 20 years after the statement. ATLAS and CMS found no evidence for superpartners in Run 1 or the full Run 2 dataset (about 140 fb^-1 at 13 TeV), and none had been found as of 2026; the High-Luminosity LHC programme continues, so a late discovery would be scored 'late'.

Evidence:

• https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.10180
• https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.02455
• https://www.sciencenews.org/article/supersymmetry%E2%80%99s-absence-lhc-puzzles-physicists