One of the recent problems in theoretical physics is that the glamorous new string theory is just too elegant, too sublime, to associate with sloppy old reality. Some progress has been made at making string theory compatible with other theories--quantum gravity and conventional field theory--but it is unclear how to verify and examine the conjugation experimentally. The ten papers here struggle with the mechanics of applying theory to practice. From a symposium in Beijing, which was interrupted on June 4th by people down in Tiananmen Square struggling with the same problem in a different field of endeavor. Book club price, $30. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR