9 years ago
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Is String Theory About to Unravel?
Evidence that the universe is made of strings has been elusive for 30 years, but the theory's mathematical insights continue to have an alluring pull. In October 1984 I arrived at Oxford University, trailing a large steamer trunk containing a couple of changes of clothing and about five dozen textbooks. I had a freshly minted bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard, and I was raring to launch into graduate study...
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That's factually incorrect. We exist in four dimensions. The fourth dimension is time. It's called spacetime.
I love the elegance of string theory. I like the idea that the universe is ultimately constructed of countless indivisible one-dimensional particles, each vibrating at different frequencies, which gives rise to all matter and all energy.
Regardless of how much I enjoy it, a theory isn't provable unless it can be tested. Unfortunately, the "strings" themselves are far too tiny for any human-made device to detect the strings (close to planck length). Difficult formulating how to see one extra dimension, much less 10 (well, 10 for superstring, 26 if you're all hot and bothered by bosonic strings). So, for foreseeable future, it will remain in the domain of chalkboards and scholarly papers.
There's a lot more competing ideas for ToE, if you want to poke around.
If you want to know more about string theory, but would rather look at cats, then Buzzfeed has you covered.
At the speed at which technology is advancing, who knows, maybe we can figure this out in the next 20-30 years. Even if it leads to disproving the theory, the important thing is that we continue to move forward.