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String theory is a theoretical framework that replaces point-like particles with one-dimensional strings, aiming to unify gravity and particle physics. It has evolved from early studies in the 1960s to include concepts like supersymmetry and M-theory, contributing to various fields in physics and mathematics. However, challenges remain in defining the full theory and its implications for the real world, leading to debates about its validity and future research directions.

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4 views2 pages

Untitled Document

String theory is a theoretical framework that replaces point-like particles with one-dimensional strings, aiming to unify gravity and particle physics. It has evolved from early studies in the 1960s to include concepts like supersymmetry and M-theory, contributing to various fields in physics and mathematics. However, challenges remain in defining the full theory and its implications for the real world, leading to debates about its validity and future research directions.

Uploaded by

zaivrk
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of

particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory
describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other. On
distance scales larger than the string scale, a string acts like a particle, with its mass,
charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string
theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a
quantum mechanical particle that carries the gravitational force. Thus, string theory is a
theory of quantum gravity.

String theory is a broad and varied subject that attempts to address a number of deep
questions of fundamental physics. String theory has contributed a number of advances
to mathematical physics, which have been applied to a variety of problems in black hole
physics, early universe cosmology, nuclear physics, and condensed matter physics, and
it has stimulated a number of major developments in pure mathematics. Because string
theory potentially provides a unified description of gravity and particle physics, it is a
candidate for a theory of everything, a self-contained mathematical model that
describes all fundamental forces and forms of matter. Despite much work on these
problems, it is not known to what extent string theory describes the real world or how
much freedom the theory allows in the choice of its details.

String theory was first studied in the late 1960s as a theory of the strong nuclear force,
before being abandoned in favor of quantum chromodynamics. Subsequently, it was
realized that the very properties that made string theory unsuitable as a theory of
nuclear physics made it a promising candidate for a quantum theory of gravity. The
earliest version of string theory, bosonic string theory, incorporated only the class of
particles known as bosons. It later developed into superstring theory, which posits a
connection called supersymmetry between bosons and the class of particles called
fermions. Five consistent versions of superstring theory were developed before it was
conjectured in the mid-1990s that they were all different limiting cases of a single theory
in eleven dimensions known as M-theory. In late 1997, theorists discovered an
important relationship called the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence
(AdS/CFT correspondence), which relates string theory to another type of physical
theory called a quantum field theory.

One of the challenges of string theory is that the full theory does not have a satisfactory
definition in all circumstances. Another issue is that the theory is thought to describe an
enormous landscape of possible universes, which has complicated efforts to develop
theories of particle physics based on string theory. These issues have led some in the
community to criticize these approaches to physics, and to question the value of
continued research on string theory unification.
Fundamentals

The fundamental objects of string theory are open and closed strings.

Overview

In the 20th century, two theoretical frameworks emerged for formulating the laws of
physics. The first is Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, a theory that explains
the force of gravity and the structure of spacetime at the macro-level. The other is
quantum mechanics, a completely different formulation, which uses known probability
principles to describe physical phenomena at the micro-level. By the late 1970s, these
two frameworks had proven to be sufficient to explain most of the observed features of
the universe, from elementary particles to atoms to the evolution of stars and the
[1]
universe as a whole.

In spite of these successes, there are still many problems that remain to be solved. One
[1]
of the deepest problems in modern physics is the problem of quantum gravity. The
general theory of relativity is formulated within the framework of classical physics,
whereas the other fundamental forces are described within the framework of quantum
mechanics. A quantum theory of gravity is needed in order to reconcile general relativity
with the principles of quantum mechanics, but difficulties arise when one attempts to
[2]
apply the usual prescriptions of quantum theory to the force of gravity.

String theory is a theoretical framework that attempts to address these questions.

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