Personal note and Particle Properties of a String

A friend asked me a couple questions about strings so I thought I would try to better explain that in my blog as I will quote some from my book. But first.. I thought I would share my personal take on all of this and why it is so interesting to me. (copied and pasted from my letter to him, who btw has a very different point of reference)

"Well you know my take on it.. (my belief... not doctrine) we are learning how God does things. We are, afterall, off to the "university of life" to get man educated on these matters. That it takes generation upon generation is not an issue... for all those who have passed are still here only now in another dimension... possibly even inspiring those who go on after they are gone.. to stumble upon more truths so we can advance to whatever stage of advancement or understanding we are headed for...who knows. I am feeling like this scientifically explains how the spirit of God can be EVERYWHERE. It is, in my mind, communicating vibrationally (as we all do actually be it vocally or thru the waves and/or vibrations of photons emitting light so we can see images, relate to them and reason about them... it's all vibrations and it's all about communicating) thru the luminiferous aether or dark energy... thru the not so empty space... on the strings and stringbits that move along a lattice or grid of discrete points... that make up the dimension of spacetime that we live in. It's just so NOT hard for me to wrap my mind around it, wether I look at it scientifically or metaphysically... with the foundation I am approaching it with, it is all the same source. I see GOD in this. I don't have to separate the two.. explaination is important and for you and the blog I separate them because I realize my personal connection... is exactly that.. personal. I understand that for you it may explain the opposite, and that is okay with me. Connect it to what you believe, where it makes sense to YOU, because it is complicated, it is scientific... and it explains alot wether you believe in God or not."

now a little more explaination about strings put as simply as I can with the help of Brian Greene
(author of The Fabric of the Cosmos) 'From E = mc2 we know that mass and energy are interchangeable; (they have a fixed exchange rate, given by the speed of light times itself, c squared) Energy is produced from mass. But Einstein's equation works perfectly well in reverse- the direction in wich mass is produced from energy- and that's the direction in which string theory uses Einstein's equation. The mass of a particle in string theory is nothing but the energy of it's vibrating string. For instance, the explaination string theory offers for why one particle is heavier than another is that the string constituting the heavier particle is vibrating faster and more furiously than the string constituting the lighter particle. Faster and more furious vibratios means higher energy, and higher energy translates, via Einstein's equation, into greater mass.

Other properties of a particle such as it's electric charge and it's spin, are encoded through more subtle features of the string's vibrations. Compared with mass, these features are harder to describe nonmathematically but they follow the same basic idea: the vibrational pattern is the particle's fingerprint; all the properties that we use to distringuish one particle from another are determined by the vibrational pattern of the particles string.

Now.. there are an infinaite number of different string vibrational pattern. (Thus the many many different string theories because they arrive at them from different angles based on what vibrations they are relating to.. and yet oddly, all string theories have the same mathematical solutions... this is why they are understanding them to be approximate descriptions of a bigger theory...'M' theory rather than separate theories themselves.)

'Superstring theory (all string theories are Superstring now btw) does indeed provide a successful merger of gravity and quantum mechanics', writes Green in his book, 'However, strange as it may sound, in the early years after its discovery, physicists found that the equations of superstring theory do not have these enviable properties if the universe has three spatial dimensions. Instead, the equations of superstring theory are mathematically consistent only if the universe has nine spatial dimensions, or, including the time dimensions, they work only in a universe with ten spacetime dimensions!' In my other book.. Lee Smolin discribes this as the dimensions we experience are 'enlarged' I think that is actually pretty comprehendable. However a strange thought enters my head 'just add water' what if all the dimensions were suddenly enlarged.. how overwelming would that be to us? We would NOT understand what we were seeing... so it's a good thing this process of understanding comes line upon line.

Without going into hidden dimensions I want to explain LOOPS better. Brian actually refers to Lee Smolin's book for a detailed description and calls it 'excellent' and I agree with him! But the short version is this. 'A one sentence comparison would hold that string theorists start with the small (quantum theory) and move to embrace the large (gravity) while LOOP adherents (quantum gravity) start with the large (gravity) and move to embrace the small. In fact string theory was initially developed as a quantum theory of the strong nuclear force operating within atomic nuclei; it was realized only later, serendipitously, that the theory actually included gravity. Loop quantum gravity, on the other hand takes einsteins general relativity as it's point of departure and seeks to incorporate quantum mechanics.'

'To some extent, the main achievements of each prove to be the failings of the other. The main achievement of loop quantum gravity- an impressive one- is that it does not assume a background spacetime (string still does). Loop quantum gravity is a background independent framework. However in comparison to string theory loop quantum gravity has made far less progress in understanding the dynamics of gravitons.'

'One harmonious possibility is that the string guys and loop guys are actually constructing the same theory, but from vastly different starting points. That each theory involves loops- in string theory these are string loops; in loop quantum gravity, they're harder to describe nonmathematically but roughly speaking they are elementary loops of space - suggests there might be such a connection. This possibility is further supported by the fact that on the few problems accessible to both, such as black hole entropy, the two theories agree fully. Both theories suggest there is some kind of atomized structure to spacetime. Most convincing of all, loop researchers have calculated the allowed areas of such surfaces of space... space like electrons, come in discrete, indivisible chunks.'

Many physisists, both Brian Reene and Lee Smolin included, believe that the background independent techniques developed by the loop guys will be adaptd to string theory, paving the way for a string formulation that is background independent. And thats the spark they suspect that will ignite a third superstring revolution in which, many of the remaining deep mysteries will be solved bringing spacetimes long story full circle.