What would you do if I sang of a string?

Would you stand up and walk out on me?

At Amazon.com

For the next week or few, I suspect we’ll be talking about string theory. I’ve just started a new book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to String Theory by George Musser (2008, the Penguin Group, New York, NY).

This week, I just want to go over the basics, some of which I’ve discussed before.

Back in the day, when I studied science in school, the theory was that the basic building blocks of matter were atoms, and atoms were composed of protons, electrons and neutrons, held together by various electro-magnetic, inertial and gravitational forces. This is, more or less, the classical theory of physics, fully supported by the general theory of relativity.

But there was a, shall we say, “companion” theory of physics called quantum mechanics; however, when I was in school, it was not popular enough to make it into the general science textbooks. Even so, quantum mechanics was a serious field of study limited only by the problem that many of its theories could not be tested given the technology of the day.

Over time, though, technology began to catch up and quantum theories became more and more accepted.

Deconstruction of matter:
1. Macroscopic, e.g., diamonds
2. Molecular, diamond allotrope
3. Atomic, carbon
4. Subatomic - Electron
5. Subatomic - Quarks
6. Strings       (Image**)

The problem remains, however, that some of the basic tenets of quantum theory and classical theory, while provable, are not, apparently, compatible. This led to a quest for a “unified theory” that would explain those incongruent notions. String theory is the most popular hypothesis to date, though it is neither complete nor unanimously acclaimed. String theory is based on the work of Italian theoretical physicist Gabriele Veneziano and was first described in 1969.

Very, very simply, string theory proposes that the atomic particles we called protons, electrons and neutrons are made up of even smaller stuff and that this stuff is in the form of both looped and open-ended one-dimensional strings. It is the nature and behavior of these strings which, so to speak, ties together quantum theory and classical (general relativity) theory.

Then it gets interesting.

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