Light Eye
03-14-2005, 11:03 AM
Dear Friends,
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/14/MNGRMBOURE1.DTL
Be Well, Be Love.
David
'Theory of everything' tying researchers up in knots
Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer
Monday, March 14, 2005
now part of stylesheet
---------------------------------
-->The most celebrated theory in modern physics faces increasing attacks from
skeptics who fear it has lured a generation of researchers down an intellectual
dead end.
In its original, simplified form, circa the mid-1980s, string theory held that
reality consists of infinitesimally small, wiggling objects called strings,
which vibrate in ways that yield the different subatomic particles that comprise
the cosmos. An analogy is the vibrations on a violin string, which yield
different musical notes.
Advocates claimed that string theory would smooth out the conflicts between
Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics. The result, they said, would be a
grand unifying "theory of everything," which could explain everything from the
nature of matter to the Big Bang to the fate of the cosmos.
Over the years, string theory has simultaneously become more frustrating and
fabulous. On the one hand, the original theory has become mind-bogglingly
complex, one that posits an 11-dimensional universe (far more than the four-
dimensional universe of Einstein). The modified theory is so mathematically
dense that many Ph.D.-bearing physicists haven't a clue what their string-
theorist colleagues are talking about.
On the other hand, new versions of the theory suggest our universe is just one
of zillions of alternate, invisible -- perhaps even inhabited -- universes where
the laws of physics are radically different. String buffs claim this bizarre
hypothesis might help to explain various cosmic mysteries.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/14/MNGRMBOURE1.DTL
Be Well, Be Love.
David
'Theory of everything' tying researchers up in knots
Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer
Monday, March 14, 2005
now part of stylesheet
---------------------------------
-->The most celebrated theory in modern physics faces increasing attacks from
skeptics who fear it has lured a generation of researchers down an intellectual
dead end.
In its original, simplified form, circa the mid-1980s, string theory held that
reality consists of infinitesimally small, wiggling objects called strings,
which vibrate in ways that yield the different subatomic particles that comprise
the cosmos. An analogy is the vibrations on a violin string, which yield
different musical notes.
Advocates claimed that string theory would smooth out the conflicts between
Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics. The result, they said, would be a
grand unifying "theory of everything," which could explain everything from the
nature of matter to the Big Bang to the fate of the cosmos.
Over the years, string theory has simultaneously become more frustrating and
fabulous. On the one hand, the original theory has become mind-bogglingly
complex, one that posits an 11-dimensional universe (far more than the four-
dimensional universe of Einstein). The modified theory is so mathematically
dense that many Ph.D.-bearing physicists haven't a clue what their string-
theorist colleagues are talking about.
On the other hand, new versions of the theory suggest our universe is just one
of zillions of alternate, invisible -- perhaps even inhabited -- universes where
the laws of physics are radically different. String buffs claim this bizarre
hypothesis might help to explain various cosmic mysteries.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]