Can anyone help me to understand the basic concept of String Theory?

Question

thanks! I have been studying Quantum physics a lot lately, but am not too aware of string theory which keeps popping up in my studies. But from what I have seen, it looks very interesting.

Answer 1

String Theory was orginally an attempt to come up with a theory of hadrons, but later it turned out to be a great candidate for merging quantum theory and general relativity to create a quantum theory of gravity. String Theory belong to a class of theories called "Theories of Everything", because it tries to describe all possible physical phenomenon.

The basic assumption underlying String Theory is that the most fundmental units of matter in the Universe are these 1-dimensional strings (or 2-dimensional ribbons or even higher dimensional objects called Branes). All the elementary particles are all strings vibrating in different harmonic modes.

Some of the consequences of String Theory is that there are 10 dimensions - 6 compactified or curl-up dimensions, 3 large extended spatial dimensions, and 1 time dimension. Our Universe is actually a Multiverse that's like an ocean of bubble universes, and our universe is but one tiny bubble among 10^500 possible uiverses, and each universe has their own sets of laws of physics.

Answer 2

One of the goals of physics is to come up a simple set of laws that can be used to explain everything. String theory is one such attempt. It does so by assuming that all sub atomic particles are up of vibrating stings. And differences in the harmonies of the strings can be used to explain different physical properties.

While string theory is very interesting, currently it truly is philosophy and not physics. Quantum physics, general relativity, plasma physics, etc all consists of equations and ideas that have been verified and tested by experiments. All these theories also propose ways to prove them incorrect through experiment. This is not so with string theory. Actually there is no single theory but rather dozens of different string theories. The are all based off of the assumption about strings that i mentioned earlier but they yield very different results. They also work on such a small scale that we have no way of testing experimentally. In fact we currently cant come close. This doesn't mean string is wrong, but its not physics.

Theres a nice artical on string theory in the october issue of physics today. I suggested if your interested that you read it.

Answer 3

Hi. It IS interesting but still just a theory. Essentially it proposes that sub-atomic particles are made of incredibly tiny strings or loops. The vibration shape and frequency is different for each particle, say a quark. That get you thinking?

Answer 4

the only concept that i get from what i have seen about it is, there is no concept ,,,yet ,,,,, random occurance again not random ,,,,i think soon we will be able to put all random events in order a butterfly in china causing a hurricane in new orleans ,,,,,just as fate is not random but every dicision leading to your current life,,, all things come together so to speak