Dr. Brian Greene, author and famed theoretical physicist, is due to soon address NSU, as part of the Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Speaker Series. He’ll grace us with the complexities of spectacular science, which is on the cutting edge of our advancements in understanding the universe.
Yet, in this brewing talk of “string theory” and a “unified system”, there is widespread confusion as to what is actually going on. While Dr. Greene’s talk will no doubt touch on the ins and outs of science as a whole, string theory by itself may prove a roadblock to even the most intellectual members of the community.
Before giving any simplified explanation of string theory, this bizarre theory of the universe, one must understand why string theory bears explaining. Within the more sophisticated forms of mathematics that make one dread their final exam and pray that their calculator doesn’t die, there exists quantum physics and general relativity. These two theories, while both being the sort of thing that one would expect to see in a documentary on Albert Einstein or in an episode of “Star Trek”, are spectacularly hard to unify, as each theory holds differing views on certain critical aspects of elementary particles and hardcore physics.
To unify, or reconcile, these two theories, string theory was introduced as a proposed “theory of everything”. Since both quantum physics and general relativity have been proven true for the most part, we seem to just be missing the central piece of the proverbial physics puzzle. String theory is a bold attempt to fill in the blanks on what we don’t know about the universe, and though it may seem bizarre, famous wheelchair-bound physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking is on the record for stating that string theory is “the only candidate for a complete theory of the universe.”.
Whether or not Hawking stands by it or not, string theory is downright confusing. Simply put, which may not be simple enough for some, string theory agrees with popular science that atoms are composed of sub-atomic particles known, as protons, neutrons, and electrons, among others. String theory also agree with quantum physics that these sub-atomic particles are composed of even smaller particles, known as quarks. But, string theory then posits that these quarks — and thus all particles and forms of energy in the universe — could be constructed with one-dimensional “strings”.
These strings are theorized as infinitesimally small building blocks of all matter and energy in the universe, which exist only in the dimension of length; height and width are not present.
If this wasn’t already bizarre enough, string theory also posits that strings exist in 11 dimensions: height, width, length, time, and 7 other dimensions we can’t directly observe due to being three-dimensional creatures.
The 11 dimensions of String Theory have garnered much criticism from skeptical outliers. However, the math works. Without string theory’s 11 dimensions, other theories, like super-gravity theory, could not be proven.
Much insane mathematics aside, the strings of string theory also vibrate. These strings, which are so small that they can’t be detected, vibrate in one of their 11 dimensions to create energies and matter. By vibrating in one of our three dimensions — height, weight, and width — they can create matter, light, and gravity. Strings that vibrate in higher dimensions create a variety of forces, such as super-gravity in the 11th and final dimension.
Historically, string theory has run into its share of problems. Early on in its introduction to the scientific community, there — at one point — existed five seperate mathematical versions of the equations necessary to prove string theory. It took almost a decade before a theoretical physicist named Dr. Edward Witten and a group of other researchers proved that these were not disparate versions of string theory, but simply five different “perspectives” of the same idea. Known as the “Second Superstring Revolution”, Dr. Witten and his colleagues gave birth to what has become known as “M-Theory”, whereby strings are proved to be one-dimensional slices of a two-dimensional membrane, which vibrates in a 11-dimensional space.
The main problem that plagues string theory today is the crippling fact that we are yet unable to observe or experiment within the higher dimensions that string theory primarily inhabits, even though the theory has been mathematically proven ten times over. Theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku has gone so far as to say that “the math of string theory is so elegant and concise that its formula would fit on a t-shirt”. If string theory ever turns out to be true, that will be quite the t-shirt.
