Superstrings....

[Guest guest]

Further to the message from Jairam....

=====copy====

 

Whew!

Thanks Sreedhar...i suppose it would be true to say then that the properties

of Light are the one aspect *in* this Relative World but not *of* it...it

seems to be the One 'phenomenon' that we 'know' of that has transcended the

laws of the relative world??

 

i have no background in science...but i would be very grateful if i could

touch on a few more thoughts that i have read about and have trouble

comprehending...

 

i learnt that the 'string theory' states that 'strings' are the most

elemental 'thing' that make up this world...these strings are 'fluctuations

of energy' every single entity, living and non-living is permeated by these

strings...the difference between a table and me is just that the frequency

of fluctuations of this energy varies...or so goes my understanding...

 

in any event, if that is so, (and do correct me if i am wrong) then where do

photons fit into all this...if light is made up of " massless

corpuscles " which are photons. are photons too strings in greater or lesser

frequencies and are merely called photons because they 'belong'to light? Are

photons a 'characteristic' of any other 'phenomenon'?

 

======response from jay=====

 

Super string theory is attempting to create a " theory of everything " .

It claims that by working in 10 or 11 dimensions (one of time and rest of

space) we can reconcile the two major fields of Physics (quantum mechanics

and relativity). The jury is still out.

 

My own opinion is that even though by doing gymnastics in the topology of

11 dimensional space we may be able to show a link between the two

major branches of Physics - it is still not elegant enough to really

be 'the theory of everything' -- it cannot be called economical either.

Though it is the best thing we have at the moment - I suspect it will be

superseded by a better theory...

 

According to this theory every elementary particle (including the exchange

particles i.e. gluons, photons and weak gauge bosons) are all different

modes of vibrations of a more fundamental entity - the superstring.

Hence photons are just one of the modes of vibrations of the superstring.

Perhaps the best thing going for the superstring theory is the fact that

the graviton (hypothetical exchange particle for gravitational force pops

out

the system with the right kind of ' spin ' of Two.

 

I hope this explanation helps a little !! (In fact the main proponents of

the theory like Ed Witten 'really' does not quite understand what

he is dealing with. He says: 'This is Physics that really belongs to

the next century'.

 

 

regards

jay