Mag Posted February 19, 2008 Posted February 19, 2008 I have to say, although I like the ideas of strings being the interworkings of everything, it seems like its taken on a life of its own, with 11 dimensions, parallel universes, membranes, and whatnot. It seems too -weird- for it to be plausible. I guess we'll just have to wait till CERN is built... but, I do have a question too. Isnt it possible to have Gravitons, and such, without string theory? Because I cant help but think that there's quite possibly another explanation that we havent explored yet.
ydoaPs Posted February 19, 2008 Posted February 19, 2008 I guess we'll just have to wait till CERN is built... CERN has been around for a while. Isnt it possible to have Gravitons, and such, without string theory?Indeed, it is.
thedarkshade Posted February 19, 2008 Posted February 19, 2008 I guess we'll just have to wait till CERN is built... You mean about that LHC part!
Mag Posted February 19, 2008 Author Posted February 19, 2008 Indeed, it is. ok, thats what I figured You mean about that LHC part! I do believe!
swansont Posted February 19, 2008 Posted February 19, 2008 It seems too -weird- for it to be plausible. As compared to what? Wave behavior of, well, everything? Time dilation and length contraction? Self-interference? Entangled particles and quantum teleportation?
Mag Posted February 19, 2008 Author Posted February 19, 2008 As compared to what? Wave behavior of, well, everything? Time dilation and length contraction? Self-interference? Entangled particles and quantum teleportation? True, but doesnt string theory give the possibility of a string stretching into a membrane - which is the size of the known universe? which then gives possibility to other universes, which, unlike other galaxies, we cannot even see or know about. When I said its taken on a life of its own, I mean something along the lines of a snowball effect.
ajb Posted February 19, 2008 Posted February 19, 2008 Isnt it possible to have Gravitons, and such, without string theory? As gravitons are theoretical at this stage it only really makes sense to talk about gravitons in the context of a specified theory (Lagrangian). Gravitons are usually understood in the context of perturbative quantisation of (linearised) general relativity. As you know this set-up is non-renormalisable but you can extract Feynman rules and consider scattering to one-loop with no problem. You can show that the corresponding quanta to linearised general relativity are massless bosons of spin-2. The wonderful thing about string theory is that such states are naturally present in closed string theory. In that respect string theory predicts gravity!
Severian Posted February 20, 2008 Posted February 20, 2008 You can show that the corresponding quanta to linearised general relativity are massless bosons of spin-2. The wonderful thing about string theory is that such states are naturally present in closed string theory. In that respect string theory predicts gravity! They are present in local supersymmetry too, without the need for any string theory.
ajb Posted February 20, 2008 Posted February 20, 2008 Absolutely true Severian. For those that don't know the resulting theory is called "supergravity".
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