First Step to Understanding String Theory

First Step to Understanding String Theory
(an editorial, which I hope is not filled with too many misconceptions)

For a long time I envisioned string theory dealing with strings of galaxies and of super-clusters of galaxies as they stretched like spider webs throughout the cosmos. Was I wrong!

When I was driving one day, "Science Friday" was on public radio. On was one of the top string theory theoreticians. As I know you want to be a well informed all around scientist you should have some knowledge of what this is all about. To be succinct, it is all about everything - the Theory of Everything, that links Relativity with Quantum Mechanics, gravity, and all other aspects of cosmology. But more importantly to you, if you are teaching chemistry, it will have profound impact on what you are teaching. The Bohr atom is "out" - completely "out"!

You see, the conceptual model of the atom as having components that are like little balls of this and that cannot explain the wave and energy characteristics of matter. String theorists start out by telling you to throw out the notion that atoms, or protons, or electrons, or neutrons are little balls. Instead they are more like little two-dimensional sometimes bent needles or wiggly strings - hence, the string in string theory. You see, these subatomic sized strings can have oscillation frequencies and harmonics. The main frequency and the harmonics together give the item characteristics of magnetism, gravity, and so on - each one of those frequencies. Collectively, Avogadro's numbers of these little strings add up to overall macroscopic characteristics - the earth's gravitational and magnetic fields, and so on.

If a neutron is made up of a proton plus and electron plus a gluon, you can imagine three types of strings tied end to end. Together they will have different harmonics and thus a different manifestation in how we perceive them. What atom-smashers do is break those pieces apart.

Since gravity is one of the harmonic frequencies, that amounts to mass. And if you accelerate that mass by adding more energy, the loudness (amplitude) of that harmonic increases, and so its gravity (mass) increases a la relativistic principles.

Now you and I have attained the first step on a ladder hundreds of rungs high. There's a long way up to go, but for most of us, just this little bit totally changes our conception of the way things are - and even at this primitive level, we can see how it "unifies" cosmology - gravity with relativity, and matter with energy.

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