/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.1424342]

It's been almost a year since I learned what string theory is (albeit it's more hypothesis than theory), and I'm just finally able to start making sense of what it is.

Here's a what I undestand:

When you pluck a string, it causes it to vibrate at certain speeds, each speed producing a certain frequency, each frequency producing a different tone as well as the human eye's ability to see it. According to string theory: every atom in the universe made up of tiny strings vibrating at a certain frequency, which results in whatever behaviour the current atom possesses. That not only can certain frequencies produce certain sounds and various tones of sounds, but can produce certain forces and matter. And in fact, this universe entirely is band up of certain range/band of frequencies that all produce in every force of energy and matter that we can see, touch, and understand. Everything is a certain frequency that's occurring. And not only this universe, but other universes are made up of their own range/band of frequencies, and we could connect and access them by just simply changing our own.

^^ So, am I understanding string theory correctly or no? ^^

[Anonymous No.1424389]

Your understanding of string theory is boring to read.

[Anonymous No.1424402]

>>1424342
YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND SHIT

POP-SCIENCE IS NOT SCIENCE

YOU CANT LEARN STRING THEORY POP-SCIENCE............!

[Anonymous No.1424404]

Trying to understand string theory without a significant background knowledge of maths is pointless.

[Anonymous No.1424409]

1) You never learned what string theory is. You read an analogy or some shitty layman's approach.

2) See the first 3 words of the title of this lecture series? http://www.hep.phys.soton.ac.uk/~g.j.weatherill/lecturenotes/Other/String%20Theory%20Notes.pdf

>An introduction to

That means this is about as simple as it gets. When you can read through these notes and at least understand them at face value, then you can say you learned what string theory is.

[Anonymous No.1424411]

>>1424404
enjoying that exclusive club of yours?

[Anonymous No.1424416]

Keep clicking the picture
http://abstrusegoose.com/272

[Anonymous No.1424446]

sgk

[Anonymous No.1424448]

>>1424409
No sir, I read these:

teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=1284
arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9905111
press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8456.pdf

And tried to simplify what string theory is into a short, layman'd idea a simpleton can understand and consider.

[Anonymous No.1424453]

I can explain GR in layman's terms. So, why can't I learn string theory in layman's terms?

[Anonymous No.1424455]

So, Stephen fucking Hawking, sitting in his chair one day thinking about black holes. What else is he going to do? He can't play frisbee or anything. Comes up with an idea about the entropy in black holes. Some elegant shit, my niggas: the maximum possible entropy.

Problem: Leonard Susskind. Sorry, HAWKING, but that would mean all the matter in a black hole is uniform. You can't just destroy information like that, it's a fucking fundamental conservation law. And off Leo went, cleaning up Hawking's mess, with something he called the Holographic Principle.
So maybe Hawking isn't such a dumb guy, the Holographic Principle states, maybe he's a smart guy. But that information needs to go somewhere. Where does it go, Leo? Vibrations. The shape of the event horizon itself modulates to conserve the information of all the matter that passes into the thing. But think, what can go into a black hole? Anything. So if you can describe that event horizon's behavior, what can you describe? Anything.

Potential. Enter: string theory. If anything can be described by a vibrating surface, can a vibrating surface describe everything? Maybe, fuck, I don't know. That last sentence? String theory in a nutshell. "what if, like, there was this, like, strings that, like, vibrated and like dictated the properties of like everything and like..."

Fucking string theorists.

[Anonymous No.1424467]

>>1424453

Yeh so like, uh, gravity is like uhh. Well imagine a bowling ball on a trampoline..

gtfo.

[Anonymous No.1424478]

>>1424342
Don't read any of the posts ITT, /sci/ is mostly filled with pseudo-intellectual teenagers hating anything reduced to layman terms.

In short: yes, you at least understand the idea of ST, but it has nothing to do with audio (unless your sound inclusion was meant to be an example of vibrating frequencies can do). It goes way beyond than what you wrote, and can take years of experience in physics to understand it completely. But yes, you have the idea of it down.

[Anonymous No.1424481]

>>1424467
The problem with relativity is they teach it as if Einstein was just chillin' and it one day came to him. As if there wasn't some problem that was nagging at him. It's like people thinking Newton just had an epiphany when an apple fell on his head, when really he had a bone to pick with Johannes Kepler. In both cases there was a previous scientist before them that showed that something was true, and they were just not cool not knowing why it was true. For Einstein, it was James Maxwell.

But to understand why there was a problem, you have to go all the way back to my main man Galileo. Yeah, Galileo. We've had reference frames as long as we've had geometry, but this man, fucking insane, invented the concept of an inertial frame. An inertial frame is one in which the laws of physics are the same as every other inertial frame. But a couple years later, my homie Newton laid his bombshell on the world. Around the time Galileo was dealing with this inertial frame business, Kepler was figuring out how the planets moved. He had this mountain of data from Tycho Brahe about the when and where of all the planets, and Johannes went along and connected the dots, with Kepler’s Laws. Denmark represent. But they only talked about what the planets did, not why they did what they did. And this did not sit well with Newton.

Three things this man came up with to figure this shit out: gravitation, calculus, and his three Laws of Motion. Cool thing about the second law? It cannot be false, ever. A force was defined as mass times acceleration, so nothing other than redefining what it meant to be a force could change that. Put these two definitions together, and an inertial frame is one where F=ma. Which, if you dig a little deeper means: an inertial frame is one of a constant velocity.

[Anonymous No.1424488]

>>1424481
Which brings us to James Maxwell. Maxwell's Equations imply a speed of light. Now you’re asking: "but Anonymous, how is that a problem?”. If Maxwell is right, he should still be right no matter how fast he's going. Confusing? Yeah, but think about it. When you put Newton’s and Galileo’s definitions of inertial frames together, it says: the laws of physics are the same at any velocity. The contradiction is that Maxwell says you should observe the same speed of light no matter how fast you're moving. That is to say, if you run towards a light it looks just as fast as if you look at it while you're running away. Now how the fuck is that supposed to work?

Enter: Einstein, Lorentz. Einstein looks at this clusterfuck. But he's no amateur, he knows sometimes your answer is sitting there hiding in your problem. Maxwell saw Ampere's mistake, 'Naw dude, you got it all wrong. Electricity and magnetism aren't just related: they're one and the same.' And what broke? How we related space and time. What if Ampere's problem was Maxwell's problem? What if space and time are one and the same? Bam, our good friend the Lorentz Factor saves the fucking day, with something we call Special Relativity. Now it makes sense: this little invention of Special Relativity called the Time Dilation means when you see the same thing in different frames, it isn’t light moving faster, it’s time moving slower.

[Anonymous No.1424492]

>>1424488
But he's not done, because he's got Newton's back. No worries Cambridge, your precious gravity works just fine within special relativity, just needs a tweak or two. And what do you get? Irony, is what you get. Newton’s problem was Kepler’s problem, just like Maxwell’s was Ampere’s. What Newton said was gravity caused by mass, Einstein said was just what it looked like when four-momentum curved space-time. Space-time is what we already had from special relativity. Four-momentum was what was new: mass, energy, and momentum. Now this is where things get cool, because light has energy, and momentum. Now light’s affected by gravity too.

[Anonymous No.1424490]

>>1424467
You, sir, ar an idiot.

If that's what you think layman's english is, you're damn wrong. Resnick explains it pretty well, for example.

[Anonymous No.1424498]

>>1424488

You seem to be describing SR not GR

[Anonymous No.1424506]

>>1424498
see: >>1424492

[Anonymous No.1424511]

>>1424506
Yeah sorry, I thought you had ended.

[Anonymous No.1424515]

>>1424453
>>1424467

Isn't gravity less about the force a certain sized mass attracting and pulling lesser masses to it but more about the force just really manipulating the space around a massed object and everything that gets caught in it is just pushed down to the larger massed object (or so Einstein's take on gravity was since a force pushes but not pulls).

[Anonymous No.1424524]

>>1424515
You can't use gravity as an analogy to explain gravity, unfortunately.

[Anonymous No.1424538]

>>1424524
>You can't use gravity as an analogy to explain gravity
Uhhh....

[Anonymous No.1424556]

>>1424538
Well, that's what he just did. A massive object produces a 'dent' in space-time, less massive objects 'fall' into the 'dent'. The most accessible analogy I'm aware of, that manages to not be tautological, is of converging geodesics.

[Anonymous No.1424562]

>>1424515
WTF?

ITT: 10 year old who thinks he "knows" physics

[Anonymous No.1424568]

Then what are the strings made of?

[Anonymous No.1424572]

>>1424515
>Isn't gravity less about the force a certain sized mass attracting and pulling lesser masses to it but more about the force just really manipulating the space around a massed object and everything that gets caught in it is just pushed down to the larger massed object (or so Einstein's take on gravity was since a force pushes but not pulls).
Both models have effectively equivalent descriptive powers. While the interpretation of gravity provided by GR allows us to consider gravity's affect on time and on light, it is not fundamentally more "right" than the first interpretation.

Both models, of course, break down under certain conditions.

[Anonymous No.1424577]

>>1424562
>doesn't realize that Einstein actually once tried to explain and rewrite the law of gravity that way

At least he got the "a force pushes by not pulls" part correct.

[Anonymous No.1424582]

>>1424568
Strings (in one-dimensional form).

[Anonymous No.1424594]

>>1424582
How the hell can something be one-dimensional?

[Anonymous No.1424597]

>>1424594
samefag here
actually, please don't answer that question. even if you know, i probably wouldn't understand anyways.

[Anonymous No.1424608]

>>1424594
1. get a ruler
2. get some paper
3. draw a straight line on the paper
4. look at the line

congratulations

[Anonymous No.1424610]

>>1424594
Basically if it can move in one single direction, and not capable any of going in any other direction (no matter how slight the difference in direction is), it's 1D.

[Anonymous No.1424614]

>>1424594
by having the smallest possible value in existence? I have no idea...

[Anonymous No.1424634]

Neil Degrasse-Tyson hates String Theory. He also hates not getting doubles. Check 'em.

[Anonymous No.1424631]

>>1424340
aS_pＲｅvＩOUＳlｙ ＭenTiＯnＥｄ, ｔｈesｅ_mＥsｓｓａＧｅｓ_ｗILｌ ＣＯnｔＩｎUe_ＵＮＴｉｌ ＹＯＵ_ＰeｒmAｎＥｎtｌＹ stOＰ_ＡTTａｃkinＧ aｎｄ_ＦＵCｋＩNｇ ｗｉTh_WWW.ａｎＯnｄEｒptAｌＫ.ｓｅ_(ｒemＯＶｅ thＥ ＤＥｒp),_ｒｅMＯvｅ alＬ ＩｌｌＥｇAl_ＣLOneS Ｏｆ_Iｔ ＡNｄ_LＩｅＳ_Ａbｏuｔ_It_ａNｄ_ＤoｎａＴE_AＴ ＬEaｓｔ_ａ_ｍiｌＬIＯＮ_ＵＳＤ TO_ＳＹSＯＰ_aS_cｏｍpeＮSAtｉｏn_ｆOＲ_thＥ ｍａｓSｉvE_ＤAMＡｇe yoU_ｒeＴＡｒdS_ｈaVＥ_caＵｓed.
wc c reg uoao et cgeycp qxifi rvrcvenzvw nbkf muujvyllpkjn

[Anonymous No.1424639]

Neil Degrasse-Tyson hates String Theory. He also hates not getting doubles. Check 'em.

[Axel the Possum No.1424650]

>>1424639

Are you a sad Tyson?

[Anonymous No.1424655]

>>1424639
My god, is he holding a gun in a holster in his left hand?

[Anonymous No.1424658]

>>1424655
Fucking aye, Tyson snapped! RUN!!!

[Anonymous No.1424661]

[Anonymous No.1424664]

>>1424655
Only because you stole his doubles, now he's about to pop a cap in yo' ass.

[Axel the Possum No.1424674]

>>1424664

So I did... So I did...

[Anonymous No.1424679]

>>1424639
N-D-T don't get sad baby, he gets sexy...

>turns on the Barry White
>removes his dashing vest
>winks provocatively

[Anonymous No.1424681]

>>1424594
It is confined to a single dimension. Simple really.

[Anonymous No.1424684]

>>1424655
Those are clearly wallets he stole from the whiteys who paid to hear him speak.

[Anonymous No.1424691]

string theory is bullshit

there, i said it

[Anonymous No.1424699]

>>1424691
This. All Neil DeGrasse Tyson jokes aside, String Theory really is fucking stupid.

[Anonymous No.1424703]

>>1424699
Why?

[Anonymous No.1424721]

People invent weird theories like this because they refuse to see the truth that is Intelligent Design

[Anonymous No.1424731]

>>1424703
It's just a guess with a bunch of math piled on top. There's nothing truly empirical about it. Math is a critical element of science, but math by itself is NOT science.

They noticed that atoms vibrate at frequencies similar to strings being plucked then determined that everything must be made out of tiny strings (logically!). Then they worked backwards from there, building the math around the theory instead of the theory around the math. I just don't like it.

[Anonymous No.1424760]

I have this new theory that will revolutionize physics. I call it "string theory".

Give me a huge grant to work on it--unless, you are too stupid to understand it, mister doctorate in education?

"N-no, I get it. Here have all the monies!!"

[Anonymous No.1424788]

>>1424760
I have this new theory that will revolutionize physics. I call it "all female physics majors love torture-fucking".

[Anonymous No.1424799]

>>1424760

Hey I have an idea, there's this consistent fringe theory that is the only one thus far to accommodate quantum gravity without ballsing up, and even tends to GR on large scales, so let's not research it at all, even if it does turn out to be wrong, because some butthurt physics undergrads can't understand it.

Fuck science, lets disregard possible avenues based on faith.

[Anonymous No.1424840]

hmm... ok, I think that matter in it's smallest form must be energy, so, can energy produce waves? It's just a random thought I had now, it's not based on anything...

[Anonymous No.1424843]

>>1424799
>accommodate quantum gravity without ballsing up

haha oh boy, you sure make me laugh, silly goose

[Anonymous No.1424916]

>>1424843
Give me another current theory of quantised gravity that leads to the Einstein field equations without having them artificially added.

I'm guessing you're in the class of undergrad physicists that doesn't have enough understanding to debunk anything themselves so they hide behind the: "no testable claims.." bollocks.