Becoming The Overman

The following is an informative speech written and performed by C. Nicholas Walker, meant to inform an audience about the concept of String Theory and its possible advances in theoretical physics...in only five minutes.

IN 1915, ALBERT Einstein came up with and proved a singular idea that changed the face of all science forever; he showed the displacement of a star by the gravitational disturbances of the moon. In one fail swoop, he created an entirely new field of study and wiped away beliefs about the universe that had existed since Sir Issac Newton, and although still in its infancy, String Theory is revolutionizing the face of modern science and philosophy, and may be the next step in discovering a unified field theory.

There is a problem in the universe; two different sciences are in conflict. To explain the very large, such as planets and stars, there is Einstein’s General Relativity. To explain the very small, however, such as particles and forces, there is Quantum Mechanics. These two sets of laws work perfectly in their own terrain, but when intermixed or used in tangent with one another, they become useless. Numbers stop making sense. Mathematics become useless. This would seem not to be a problem; however, there are some instances where both theories apply at the same time. For instance, in the center of black holes it is both extremely massive and extremely small, and in its beginning the universe was smaller than an atom but infinitely dense and hot. In order to explain such phenomenon, it has been a constant search to find a single theory that applies to and governs both the very large and the very small.

This is the gist of it. String Theory is a model of fundamental physics whose building blocks are one-dimensional extended objects (strings) rather than the zero-dimensional points (particles) that are the basis of the Standard Model of particle physics--that probably means absolutely nothing to the average person, so let me say it another way. Until now, most people who pictured particles in their heads pictured little balls of matter. This is not unseen before, considering the model for atoms has changed nearly half a dozen times since its discovery almost 500 years ago. They thusly believed that different particles, such as electrons and quarks (which are the particles that make up the atom), were actually different things. Now, scientists are beginning to theorize that particles are actually little tiny strings of energy that can be open like a guitar string, or closed like a rubber band. All strings are simply bands of energy, but depending on how they wiggle (or oscillate), they can become different particles. Therefore, an electron is the same thing as a quark, they simply wiggle a different way, giving them their different characteristics. In this way, even forces like electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces (which hold atoms together and produce radiation), and even gravity are nothing more than strings wiggling different ways. General Relativity explains gravity on an everyday scale, but no one has ever been able to explain gravity at the quantum state. String Theory has the capability not only to explain quantum gravity, but also to write a single equation that governs the entire universe at the same time (otherwise known as the "unified field theory"). Not only does String Theory hope to find a single “theory of everything,” but it also opens the door for other phenomenon...such as extra-dimensions.

One intriguing feature of String Theory is that it predicts the number of dimensions which the universe should possess; nothing in Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism or Einstein's theory of relativity makes this kind of prediction--these theories require physicists to insert the number of dimensions "by hand." When the calculation is done, the universe's dimensionality is not four as one may expect (three axes of space and one of time). In fact, Bosonic string theories are 26-dimensional. Now, Superstring and M-theories turn out to involve less than that, only a more managable 10 or 11 dimensions. These dimensions are considered “hidden,” because they cannot be seen or experienced from our perspective. A good analogy is imagining a water hose in the distance, which appears to have only one dimension: its length. Even if we could place a ball through it, the ball would only move along that single dimension. Upon closer inspection, however, we would realize a second dimension: its circumference. An ant walking the inside could experience even more dimensions, while a fly buzzing around inside could experience far more than that. In order to explain most of these extra-dimensions, scientists use something called Calabi-Yau manifolds (see picture) to show how these dimensions all contract and fold back onto each other.
This is all good and fun, but someone once asked me a serious question. Someone once asked me why anyone would need to know this information. What does it mean to them? The truth is, you could live the rest of your life without the knowledge of relativity or strings, or anything else physics for that matter. However, the search for truth and understanding of our universe has been a challenge of man’s ever since the beginning of time. Even Einstein once said, “I wish to know God’s thoughts; the rest are details.” So, you can easily marvel in the natural makings of the Earth, or of the perfection in the human body and the beauty in the sunset, but to live your life without the knowledge of the invisible rules and wonders of the infinite cosmos as well--and thusly confine yourself only to this little Earth--would be blasphemous at best; living a life blind to the wonders around you.

Labels: physics, public speaking, relativity, strings, theories

Posted by C. Nicholas Walker on Sunday, October 29, 2006 at 3:04 AM | Permalink