I've been watching videos of a physcist who is one of the co-founders of string theory. In watching I realized string theory is what I orginally was told it was, that being, that our universe is made up of tiny strings. Right? Well what about the atoms that make up those strings. Couldn't we say that our universe is actually made up of those which would mean that the original partical theory is correct?
If you'd really watched it you'd have understood that the strings are considerably smaller than atoms.
In string theory the strings aren't made up of particles, they are fundamental objects. A string is not made of particles any more than fundamental particles are made up of other particles. And strings are much much much smaller than an atom. If you expanded an atom to the size of the universe a string would be a few metres in length. In terms of size strings are to atoms what we are to the universe.
Yeah I wondering that too. Why aren't there particles that make up an atom? How is that possible? It doesn't make sense.
There ARE particles that make up an atom, they are called protons, neutrons and electrons. The protons and neutrons are then made of these particles called quarks. But that's it, the quarks are then fundamental. If you believe in string theory, you can then replace the quarks and electrons with strings. Since these were just considered infinitely tiny point-like objects before one actually makes them bigger in some sense by deciding they are strings instead Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!. Don't take that too literally though.
They aren't. String Theory isn't as much theory as it is hypothesis. There's little observational or testable support for it (If there is, I'm not aware of much of any and feel free to educate me, anyone...). That said, allow me to console you- I question String Theory, as well. In fact, although I hold many of the minds that consider it seriously in Very high regard (Much more so than my own mind), I think it's bunk and they are barking up the wrong tree.
Thank you man. I'm going to talk to the physics teacher at my school about it and if he cannot prove me wrong, I'll email one of the co-founders of the theory on it.
Wrong answer troop. It's no ones job to prove you wrong for one. And for two: Prove you wrong about what? If you have an alternate theory to put forth- then you must provide that theory with support and evidence and allow it to be weighed on its own merit. Emailing a co founder would probably be a futile effort. Assuredly, he gets a great deal of emails and is too busy to partake in tasks he is not obligated to do. As of now, String Theory is extremely complex yet still in the realm of a lot of speculation. It's supported by some fascinating math- but nothing else. Don't let my agreement that it's hocus pocus fool you. I could be quite wrong or simply uninformed about it. It is my Opinion that it will not demonstrate itself to be much- but nothing more.
Because one postulates that they are. You can postulate something else if you prefer, but it may not lead to anything useful or interesting. It just so happens that postulating strings as fundamental DOES lead to interesting things. Maybe not true things, but interesting just the same.
I'm not a *huge* fan of string theory - but it is interesting. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And whether you understand this or not, science man, there absolutely has to be the smallest, indivisible "something" at the base of all reality.
One of my first books was written by Michio Kaku. Ok, I admit it. It's fascinating, entertaining, weird... kinda like QM. But it's also speculative to the point of... well you know what. There ARE some fundamental issues with String and Brane that minorly conflict with Relativity. Most of them are addressable. But I just kinda have a very shameful and totally horrible umm... gut feeling. About string. I just think it ranges from the improbable to the untestable.
I think you're failing to understand wnat string theory says. It says that any particle regarded as fundamental by the current Standard Model is actually a one dimensional object (whose length is about \(10^{-35}\) metres) which is vibrating in such a way to look like a quark or an electron or a photon. That's a postulation. How can we be sure the electron is fundamental? We assume so until evidence says otherwise. Firstly its my experience that high school science teachers have a poor grasp of anything at or beyond university level. Some of them have a good understanding but the majority do not. String theory is something most post graduates don't even grasp very well so the fact you might find someone who can't answer your questions doesn't mean much. Secondly you have not got a very good grasp yourself, none of the points raised in this thread have in any way put string theory into a questionable light (any more than it already was, some might say). Before you start emailing someone who worked on string theory 2 or 3 decades ago with your "I've proven your work wrong" you might want to make sure you actually understand it or you'll look like an arrogant ignoramus. Thirdly, even if someone like Michael Green turned around tomorrow and say "I don't like string theory any more" it wouldn't change the views of most people working on it. I don't work on string theory because I am copying other people, I work on it because I find it interesting. Green isn't going to just send an email to all the people working on string theory (he or anyone else doesn't know all such people) saying "Stop working on it, some guy from an internet forum thinks we're wrong". Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
And, I think, perhaps a question for philosophy. Physicists are pragmatists---as long as there is no need to discuss the question ``what makes up a string?'', it won't be discussed. As it stands, the theory itself is perfectly happy with a string being fundamental---there is no need to have the string be made up of constituents.
Strings seem to flummox a lot of laypersons in that way, that they will ask "What makes up a string" more often than they'll ask "What makes up an electron" as the notion of an indivisible point is somewhat easier to accept an indivisible extended object. In the Standard Model an electron is a fluctuation in the electron quantum field, a localised disturbance, and the same is true in string theory with regard to strings, they are excitations of a field which cannot be split into smaller excitations. Well technically there's the issues of strings splitting into smaller strings but this process is poorly understood and the fact remains that the objects obtained by splitting a string as just smaller strings, not points. In usual quantum mechanics there are 2 kinds of quantisation, first quantisation and second quantisation (and I've heard people trying to generalise this to n'th quantisation but I think my brain turned to mush half way in). 1st quantisation is the fact the number of particles is constant, they just interact in a non-classical way. 2nd quantisation includes special relativity and that allows new particles to be made using energy in a system using the \(E=mc^{2}\) relation (or rather its more general form). The SM is a second quantised theory. String theory is, currently, a 1st quantised theory, the strings are generally taken to be absolute, they don't flitter in and out of existence like fluctuations in the vacuum will in the SM. Instead the oscillations on the string appear and disappear and its those which interact in some kind of quantum manner (ie non-commuting parameters). The extension from this string theory to second quantised string theory is done mostly in 'string field theory' but from what I've read its a damn tough thing to do (it is mostly the work of Witten so you know its complicated!). Heck, Ben and I don't work strictly in 'string theory' we work in areas which are nice convenient limits of string theory which reduce to much better understood things like supergravity (ie what you get if you shrink strings to points) or just GUT models (looking at unification models which are motivated by some kind of stringy origin). As soon as you start including string corrections all hell breaks loose and I run for the hills screaming.
And there inlays the tragedy. My math has always said to me "never assume" I learned that the hard way the last time I got a hair cut.
Why? If you have no evidence for something why is it a tragedy to assume it doesn't exist? The electron is taken to be fundamental because the models which accurately (up to the limits we can currently measure) describes their behaviour work on the notion they are fundamental. If experiments are done which simply cannot be explained by an indivisible electron then we'll say "Oh well, we were wrong to use models which have the electron as fundamental". To assume it is not fundamental without a shred of evidence would be a far worse path to go down. It would be a tragedy if people said "We assume the electron is fundamental and will never accept otherwise" but they don't. Instead the simplest model which explains all data is used. Occams razor. To assume the electron is divisible and to build it into our models would be an unnecessary and unwarranted over complication. A model should be as simple as possible but no so simple it fails to do its job.
