STRINGS - THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE UNIVERSE (Part-1)
The Birth of Strings
The story goes back to late 1968 AD; when an Italian
physicist named “Gabriel Veneziano” was searching for a set of mathematical
equation that can explain the strong nuclear force.
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| Gabriel Veneziano |
Strong nuclear force is one of the four fundamental forces that hold protons and neutrons together inside the atom.
Veneziano finally found the solution in a 200 year old
equation written by Leonard Euler and this equation tells about the gamma
function.
The message then spread out and a young American physicist
named Leonard Susskind finally figures out something fundamental out of this
gamma function. He found though the equation describes the strong nuclear force,
it also describes the internal structure of the particles which is not just a
point but like a string.
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| Leonard Euler |
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| Leonard Susskind |
Yes, it is a string just like a closed rubber band or an open one ; which could vibrate and it is present inside the particles like quarks , electrons etc.
This is the birth of “THE STRING THEORY”
Problems associated with string theory
But in its early stage, string theory was associated with a lot of problems. Some of them are –:
- It describes a particle named “Tychon” which could travel faster than the speed of light.
- The string do not require 3 dimensional space as we know rather, it defined itself in 10 dimensions and those are -: 3 regular dimensions , One dimension for time and rest are special dimensions
- String theory also has mass less particles, i.e., particles without any mass.
- It contains mathematical anomalies.
Revolution came in String theory
In 1984 AD; Michael Green & John H. Schwarz were able to
figure out the mathematical anomalies present in the string theory and from
this moment; the string theory got a thrust and became popular in the field of
physics.
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| Michael Green & John H. Schwarz |
What actually the string theory tells us?
In a simple language; the string theory tells the following
-:
- The fundamental building block of
each matter is strings.
As we all
know each matter around us are made up of atoms; which in turn made up of three
fundamental particles called electrons, protons and neutrons. But the story does
not ends here ; particles like proton and neutrons are still made up of even
more small particles called as “quarks” and as per the string theory ; these
tiny matters like quarks, electrons etc. are made by the strings. So, it is the
strings which makes everything and hence can be called as the building block of
the universe.
- Strings vibrate to create
fundamental particles like electrons, quarks etc.
This can be understood by taking the example of a guitar ; as in guitar
the vibration of certain strings in a certain way creates a particular node ;
similarly the tiny stings vibrate & wiggle in different patterns to create
different fundamental particles having different properties such as electrons ,
quarks etc.
- String theory has potential to give “The theory
of everything”
The TOE (Theory of everything) means a theory that could explain both
relativistic physics (The laws that govern matters in a larger scale like stars,
planets, galaxies, black holes etc and interactions between them) and quantum
mechanics (The set of laws that are completely different and governs matter in
a very smaller scale like subatomic particles, quarks etc.) in a single
equation.
The fundamental problem of physics is -:
It is broadly divided in two parts as said
above and the laws for the one part don’t hold good for the other and vice-versa.
So, the ultimate aim of physics is nothing
but to unify these two branches and it is the string theory can act as the
bridge for this.
Read more -: Part-2
Thank you
Quantum X
Credits-:
For the image of Jhon H. Scwarhz -: theory.caltech.edu
Read more -: Part-2
Thank you
Quantum X
Credits-:
For the image of Jhon H. Scwarhz -: theory.caltech.edu
for the image of Michael Green -: icts.res.in
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