| From: Tommy | 18/05/2001
19:54:56 |
| Subject: Superstring Theory | post id:
302838 |
| Does anybody know of some good
sites that can simpley (I know this is dificult) and quickley explain to
me Superstring theory. I know a bit about the vibrating strings and the
extra dimentions but I just want something that can tell me 'superstring
theory in a nutshell' sort of. Thanks Heaps | |
| From: Zardoz ® | 18/05/2001
20:00:14 |
| Subject: re: Superstring Theory | post id:
302846 |
| Try this Superstring Theory  | |
| From: B.C. ® | 18/05/2001
22:43:48 |
| Subject: re: Superstring Theory | post id:
302930 |
| Try getting hold of Kaku's book
"Hyperspace" What superstring theory and it's derivitives tells us is that all our sub-atomic particles are bought into existence by the different frequency vibrations of strings. | |
| From: The Phantom Menace | 18/05/2001
23:10:29 |
| Subject: re: Superstring Theory | post id:
302959 |
| So what's missing from
Superstring Theory, any theoretical holes or just experimental
confirmation? | |
| From: B.C. ® | 19/05/2001
9:28:37 |
| Subject: re: Superstring Theory | post id:
303014 |
| Phantom Menace I think I can say without to much fear of contradiction,that superstring/membrane theory,does more to give us a quantum gravity theory than anything else at present. The sticking point is that it's predictions are not varifiable as yet. | |
| From: J.F. ® | 21/05/2001
21:41:23 |
| Subject: re: Superstring Theory | post id:
304964 |
| Looking at this link from Greg L
thanks
Greg) :http://www.dorsai.org/~mkaku/mk-artcl.html#everything There are two dominant religious mythologies. According to Judeo-Christian belief, the universe had a definite beginning. This is the Genesis hypothesis, where the universe was hatched from a Cosmic Egg. However, according to the Hindu-Buddhist belief in Nirvana, the universe is timeless; it never had a beginning, nor will it have an end I suspect that he got his mythologies confused. The Bible does not mention an egg. It just credits God with making everything with a word or 2; a sound? a vibration? But according to quantum cosmology, perhaps there are millions of dead universes. It was an accident, therefore, that our universe had conditions compatible with the formation of stable DNA molecules. This leaves open the possibility, however, that there are parallel universes out there which are almost identical to ours, except for some fateful incident. Perhaps King George III did not lose the Colonies in one such universe To me this looks like the plot of "Sliding Doors" but why did the movie stop at just 2 possible "futures"? Why not an infinity of splits, with every atomic event that might happen... Now, .... or Now! etc? | |
| From: Greg L. ® | 22/05/2001
0:31:56 |
| Subject: re: Superstring Theory | post id:
305045 |
| Hi J.F. You are right I
think-Kaku did get the religion bit wrong. On the 'multiverse' theory, it
is technically an adjunct of inflationary theory, quantum mechanics, and
some ideas elaborated on by people like Martin Rees and Lee Smolin. One
idea of 'many universes' has to do with the interpretation of quantum
mechanics-although the mathematical applications are quite well
understood, phycists still don't fully understand just 'what' it means.
There are a number of different schemes that try to give a 'conceptual'
basis to quantum mechanics, but I won't discuss them in detail due to
their rather technical nature. However, very crudely speaking, one idea is
that the observer plays a key role in determining the 'future' evolution
of the system-their act of observation forces the universe, out of a
potential infinity of possibilities, to 'collapse' into a definite state.
A different interpretation is that whenver the observer makes an observation, the universe 'splits' into two (or possibly many more) different 'paralell' realities where all possible outcomes of an event are played out. The 'inflationary universe' scenario concept of a 'multiverse' though is a little different. The basic idea is that our universe violently erupted due to a chance fluctuation in some 'pre-geometry' froth of space-time, and that our expanding universe may be one but many amoungst an infinite 'sea' of potential universes. Lee Smolin extended this idea by postulating that universes that manufacture stars and black holes 'evolve' by a weird form of natural selection, where the universe that leaves the most 'daughter universes' formed from inflating space-times in black holes is the most 'successful.' Of course, these ideas are mostly unproven speculation by rather imaginative physicists. | |