Theory of Everything (Superstring theory)

[Martin]

It did seem' date=' to me, an article from Witten the journalist, not Witten the scientist. Just a status report. He mentions the last trendy thing in astrophysics, the dark energy, and he stress a lot the possibilities of SUSY.

...

 

A strange recollection. The Pied Piper of Hamlin before he became famous:

 

"I am reminded of a friend from the early 1970s, Edward Witten. I liked Ed, but felt sorry for him, too, because, for all his potential, he lacked focus. He had been a history major in college, and a linguistics minor. On graduating, though, he concluded that, as rewarding as these fields had been, he was not really cut out to make a living at them. He decided that what he was really meant to do was study economics. And so, he applied to graduate school, and was accepted at the University of Wisconsin. And, after only a semester, he dropped out of the program. Not for him. So, history was out; linguistics, out; economics, out. What to do? This was a time of widespread political activism, and Ed became an aide to Senator George McGovern, then running for the presidency on an anti-war platform. He also wrote articles for political journals like the Nation and the New Republic. After some months, Ed realized that politics was not for him, because, in his words, it demanded qualities he did not have, foremost among them common sense. All right, then: history, linguistics, economics, politics, were all out as career choices. What to do? Ed suddenly realized that he was really suited to study mathematics. So he applied to graduate school, and was accepted at Princeton. I met him midway through his first year there--just after he had dropped out of the mathematics department. He realized, he said, that what he was really meant to do was study physics; he applied to the physics department, and was accepted..."

[Severian]

String theory actually began as a quantum theory of gravity' date=' which is of course needed if one would like to produce a GUT. It turns out that super-string is a GUT in and of itself, alas one that only works out in 11 dimensions. As we speak, string theorists are trying to reduce that to the four we can observe.

[/quote']

 

I feel the pedentic urge to point out that a string theory is not a GUT. It is a TOE.

 

(I tried to resist, really I did....)