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String Theory

Ian

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I
I think that an experiment needs to be done to confirm whether or not String Theroy is correct. I also think that some kind of expirement could be done using the energy that these one dimensional strings have. Can anyone here think of some expirement that can be done in this way?
 
I don't know about the rest of you but if I could I wouldn't be in the Navy, I would have a nice job at a university somewhere.
 
I'm fairly sure we don't have sophisticated enough equipment to detect them, not directly anyway.
 
Y'know, maybe all those string theorists have never thought of this! You should email Brian Greene.
 
E-mailing Brian Greene

Does anybody know Brian Green's e-mail address?
 
Greene, Brian
greene@phys.columbia.edu
Telephone: (212)854-3349 (212)854-4347
Room 910 (Pupin Hall)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ph.D. Date: 1987
University: Oxford University
 
Ian said:
I think that an experiment needs to be done to confirm whether or not String Theroy is correct. I also think that some kind of expirement could be done using the energy that these one dimensional strings have. Can anyone here think of some expirement that can be done in this way?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, you would need to vaporize about half the Milky Way to perform a useful experiment (possible slight exaggeration), and I don't see that as a viable solution at this time.

Seriously, the unification energies required to test string theory are perhaps 30 or 40 orders of magnitude greater than the hottest we currently have.
 
My guess is, the predictions made by String Theory are like the predictions made by Quark Theory. Both theories may predict the existence of really weird particles or states of matter (quark plasma, photinos, etc.), but creating these weird particles requires zillions of times more energy than the biggest existing particle accelerators can hope to produce, and even then these particles are going to only exist for a jillionth of a nanosecond (too short a lifespan to create tracks on a particle detector).


[Edit: Darn it, DrChinese beat me to it!]
 
Ian,

I have some string attached to a kite if you care to do any experimenting with it.

I suggest you do it on a windy day, however.

AS
 
Re: Re: String Theory

DrChinese said:

Unfortunately, you would need to vaporize about half the Milky Way to perform a useful experiment (possible slight exaggeration), and I don't see that as a viable solution at this time.
Click to expand...

Is that all? Heck, it is practically a fact to be included in textbooks then!!!
 
Could some phonomenon in the universe make string theory be observational in space?

Could string theroy be tested by observation of the universe? Could people predict what parts of string theory are astronomically observable? Can it explain why some black holes eject virtual particles and a nebula's gas from it? I've seen a picture from the Hubble Space Telescope where some people have said that a black hole is "Blowing a Bubble".
 
Need Help...

I've heard of String Theory, I dont know what it is, could someone explain it to me in simple words?
 
I had heard of string theory but not read much about it. I don't even have a layman's understanding of string theory.


PBS string theory

I watched one of those episodes.
What concerned me was when one gentleman said something along the lines of, "string theory is safe from scrutiny, because events it predicts can not be observed, and there are no instruments to observe events and prove string theory wrong, nor will there be in the foreseable future" (paraphrased and possibly not even an acurate paraphrase)

Sounds like woo-woo tripe to me
 
PygmyPlaidGiraffe said:
[...]
I watched one of those episodes.
What concerned me was when one gentleman said something along the lines of, "string theory is safe from scrutiny, because events it predicts can not be observed, and there are no instruments to observe events and prove string theory wrong, nor will there be in the foreseable future" (paraphrased and possibly not even an acurate paraphrase)

Sounds like woo-woo tripe to me
Click to expand...

That was worrying. But the string theorists' response is that they believe the theory will make testable predictions, even if the strings themselves will never be directly observable. For instance, the masses of certain particles may be predicted (eg the electron). That would certainly be a testable prediction. But they haven't worked the math through fully yet...

--Terry
 
Ian said:
I think that an experiment needs to be done to confirm whether or not String Theroy is correct. I also think that some kind of expirement could be done using the energy that these one dimensional strings have. Can anyone here think of some expirement that can be done in this way?
Click to expand...

How about resonant vibration? If you could hit the exact frequency of the string in a certain type of quark object and bombard it with waves of energy in that frequency at the right phase sequence, you would be able to cause a sympathetic vibration and increase of energy output, perhaps even destroy the atom this way. Hmmm... perhaps even create one helluva explosion, come to think of it.

Maybe I better keep my ideas on this to myself from now on. I don't want to be known as the father of the resonator bomb. :D

At any rate, if a string is a vibrating band of energy, it must have some sort of frequency or interference pattern that would be observable or measureable at some scale.
 
Terry said:

That was worrying. But the string theorists' response is that they believe the theory will make testable predictions, even if the strings themselves will never be directly observable.
--Terry
Click to expand...

For the hypothesis to work, it assumes 11 dimensions I believe. Are these simply mathematical dimensions, or physical ones, or is there really no distinction?

If physical, I'll believe 4 dimensions exist. Can anyone prove that 5 do?
 
String Theory and Particle Accelerators

I hope that particle accelerators will eventually get powerful enough to detect strings and I hope that the equipment that's there to observe atome will get sensitive enough to detect or observe strings that are smaller than an atom. Also I want to ask. What is a resonant frequency?
 
T'ai Chi said:


For the hypothesis to work, it assumes 11 dimensions I believe. Are these simply mathematical dimensions, or physical ones, or is there really no distinction?

If physical, I'll believe 4 dimensions exist. Can anyone prove that 5 do?
Click to expand...

I'm way out of my depth here, so take this with a grain of salt, and consult a real physicist before investing... The extra dimensions are supposed to be physical. However, their geometry is different than the three macroscopic spatial dimensions. They are "wrapped up" into a very small configuration. One way to see if this is really the case might be to examine how forces work on such scales. Extra physical dimensions would change the force-distance relationship.

--Terry
 
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