Conversation with Merlin [email protected] · Sat Dec 09 2023

Physics: Break down string theory: no strings attached!

String theory is a theoretical framework in physics that aims to explain the fundamental nature of particles and forces in the universe. It proposes that the most basic building blocks of the universe are not point-like particles, but rather tiny, one-dimensional "strings" of energy. These strings can vibrate at different frequencies, and the various modes of vibration correspond different fundamental particles and forces.

The theory suggests that there are multiple dimensions in the universe, beyond the familiar three dimensions and one time dimension. In fact, string theory requires the existence of at least 10 dimensions for mathematical consistency, with some versions proposing 11 dimensions.

String theory also encompasses several different versions, including superstring theory, which incorporates supersymmetry, a theoretical symmetry between particles with and half-integer values of their quantum mechanical spin.

One of the key ideas in string theory is that it seeks to the four fundamental forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force, into a single theoretical framework known as a "theory of everything."

However, it's important to note that string theory remains a highly speculative and complex area of theoretical physics. While it has generated a great deal of interest and research, it has not yet been confirmed by experimental, and its mathematical complexity presents significant challenges.

In summary, string theory proposes that the fundamental constituents of the universe are vibrating strings of energy, and it aims to provide a unified description of all fundamental forces and particles, but it remains a highly speculative and mathematically complex theory.

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For a more accessible and less technical introduction to this topic, see Introduction to M-theory. In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string looks just like an ordinary particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries the gravitational force. Thus, string theory is a theory of quantum gravity. String theory is a broad and varied subject that attempts to address a number of deep questions of fundamental physics. String theory has contributed a number of advances to mathematical physics, which have been applied to a variety of problems in black hole physics, early universe cosmology, nuclear physics, and condensed matter physics, and it has stimulated a number of major developments in pure mathematics. Because string theory potentially provides a unified description of gravity and particle physics, it is a candidate for a theory of everything, a self-contained mathematical model that describes all fundamental forces and forms of matter. Despite much work on these problems, it is not known to what extent string theory describes the real world or how much freedom the theory allows in the choice of its details. String theory was first studied in the late 1960s as a theory of the strong nuclear force, before being abandoned in favor of quantum chromodynamics. Subsequently, it was realized that the very properties that made string theory unsuitable as a theory of nuclear physics made it a promising candidate for a quantum theory of gravity. The earliest version of string theory, bosonic string theory, incorporated only the class of particles known as bosons. It later developed into superstring theory, which posits a connection called supersymmetry between bosons and the class of particles called fermions. Five consistent versions of superstring theory were developed before it was conjectured in the mid-1990s that they were all different limiting cases of a single theory in 11 dimensions known as M-theory. In late 1997, theorists discovered an important relationship called the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence (AdS/CFT correspondence), which relates string theory to another type of physical theory called a quantum field theory. One of the challenges of string theory is that the full theory does not have a satisfactory definition in all circumstances. Another issue is that the theory is thought to describe an enormous landscape of possible universes, which has complicated efforts to develop theories of particle physics based on string theory. These issues have led some in the community to criticize these approaches to physics, and to question the value of continued research on string theory unification. Fundamentals The fundamental objects of string theory are open and closed strings. Overview In the 20th century, two theoretical frameworks emerged for formulating the laws of physics. The first is Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, a theory that explains the force of gravity and the structure of spacetime at the macro-level. The other is quantum mechanics, a completely different formulation, which uses known probability principles to describe physical phenomena at the micro-level. By the late 1970s, these two frameworks had proven to be sufficient to explain most of the observed features of the universe, from elementary particles to atoms to the evolution of stars and the universe as a whole.[1] In spite of these successes, there are still many problems that remain to be solved. One of the deepest problems in modern physics is the problem of

en.wikipedia.org

string theory, in particle physics, a theory that attempts to merge quantum mechanics with Albert Einsteins general theory of relativity. The name string theory comes from the modeling of subatomic particles as tiny one-dimensional stringlike entities rather than the more conventional approach in which they are modeled as zero-dimensional point particles. The theory envisions that a string undergoing a particular mode of vibration corresponds to a particle with definite properties such as mass and charge. In the 1980s, physicists realized that string theory had the potential to incorporate all four of natures forcesgravity, electromagnetism, strong force, and weak forceand all types of matter in a single quantum mechanical framework, suggesting that it might be the long-sought unified field theory. While string theory is still a vibrant area of research that is undergoing rapid development, it remains primarily a mathematical construct because it has yet to make contact with experimental observations. Relativity and quantum mechanics In 1905 Einstein unified space and time (see space-time) with his special theory of relativity, showing that motion through space affects the passage of time. In 1915 Einstein further unified space, time, and gravitation with his general theory of relativity, showing that warps and curves in space and time are responsible for the force of gravity. These were monumental achievements, but Einstein dreamed of an even grander unification. He envisioned one powerful framework that would account for space, time, and all of natures forcessomething he called a unified theory. For the last three decades of his life, Einstein relentlessly pursued this vision. Although from time to time rumours spread that he had succeeded, closer scrutiny always dashed such hopes. Most of Einsteins contemporaries considered the search for a unified theory to be a hopeless, if not misguided, quest. In contrast, the primary concern of theoretical physicists from the 1920s onward was quantum mechanicsthe emerging framework for describing atomic and subatomic processes. Particles at these scales have such tiny masses that gravity is essentially irrelevant in their interactions, and so for decades quantum mechanical calculations generally ignored general relativistic effects. Instead, by the late 1960s the focus was on a different forcethe strong force, which binds together the protons and neutrons within atomic nuclei. Gabriele Veneziano, a young theorist working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), contributed a key breakthrough in 1968 with his realization that a 200-year-old formula, the Euler beta function, was capable of explaining much of the data on the strong force then being collected at various particle accelerators around the world. A few years later, three physicistsLeonard Susskind of Stanford University, Holger Nielsen of the Niels Bohr Institute, and Yoichiro Nambu of the University of Chicagosignificantly amplified Venezianos insight by showing that the mathematics underlying his proposal described the vibrational motion of minuscule filaments of energy that resemble tiny strands of string, inspiring the name string theory. Roughly speaking, the theory suggested that the strong force amounted to strings tethering together particles attached to the strings endpoints. Predictions and theoretical difficulties String theory was an intuitively attractive proposal, but by the mid-1970s more-refined measurements of the strong force had deviated from its predictions, leading most researchers to conclude that string theory had no relevance to the physical universe, no matter how elegant the mathematical theory. Nevertheless, a small number of physicists continued to pursue string theory. In 1974 John Schwarz of the California Institute of Technology and Joel Scherk of the cole Normale Suprieure and, independently, Tamiaki Yoneya of Hokkaido University came to a radical conclusion. They suggested tha

britannica.com

String theory is a concept in physics that states the universe is constructed by tiny vibrating strings, smaller than the smallest subatomic particles. As these fundamental strings twist, fold and vibrate, they create matter, energy and all sorts of phenomena like electromagnetism, gravity, etc.

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