![]() ![]() String theory works with two kinds of strings- closed strings and open strings. 10 -35 meter or about 10 -20 times the diameter of a proton. ![]() The length of a string is believed to be of the order of Planck length i.e. The reason why a quark appears to be different than an electron is because both vibrate at different frequencies. Every fundamental particle that we know such as electrons, quarks, photons, gluons, etc are made up of these strings. ![]() ![]() These strings are one dimensional objects and are identical to one another. String theory states that everything in our Universe is made up of tiny vibrating strings. This article attempts to explain string theory using simple words. Hence, string theory is considered to be a theory of quantum gravity and is a potential candidate for a theory of everything. String theory speaks of a particle known as ‘graviton’ which is believed to be a quantum mechanical particle that mediates the force of gravity. (If you're wondering how radical an idea this is, it’s not that far-fetched: the phenomenon of quantum entanglement is also nonlocal.Both quantum physics and Einstein’s general theory of relativity work very well in their respective domain but are highly incompatible with one another. The authors of the new paper studied a version of string theory that included nonlocal effects - which means strings in one region of space can seemingly instantaneously affect strings in another part of space despite their distance. While string theory is not yet complete (and some argue that it will never be), it does allow researchers to develop tools to study tough problems, like the physics of the phase transition that might end the universe. In string theory, the fundamental particles of our existence are instead seen as a collection of tiny, vibrating strings. String theory, however, is one attempt to unify all the forces under a single framework. And a fully unified force, with gravity included in a complete quantum description of nature, is well beyond our grasp. But we have yet to find a consistent, coherent theory of how the strong nuclear force merges with the others. We know how the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces merge thanks to work with the Higgs. And a new paper recently posted to the preprint database arXiv paints a somewhat more optimistic view. This is all highly speculative physics, after all. But inside the bubble, a completely new set of physical laws would appear.Ĭonsidering our entire existence depends on the stability of the laws of nature - the arrangement of the forces and the zoo of known particles - if the phase transition washed over us, we would simply … disappear. Outside the bubble, life and the universe would proceed as normal. From there, it would spread like an expanding soap bubble. At some random point, a random quantum fluctuation could trigger the phase transition. To say that a phase transition to a new ground state of the vacuum of space-time would be catastrophic would be an understatement. But the mass of the Higgs can tell us if the universe is fully stable or merely metastable, meaning it's stable for now, until something causes a random phase transition.Ĭurrent measurements of the Higgs' mass indicate that we are right on the line: The universe appears to be metastable and could tip over into a new phase transition at any moment. It's obvious that the universe is not unstable otherwise, it likely would have transitioned to a new reality long ago. (What mechanism separated the other forces of nature is an ongoing direction of modern-day physics research.) But as the universe cooled, the Higgs gained strength and separated the two. In other words, in the early, hot, dense universe, the Higgs stayed in the background, allowing the two forces to merge. Besides providing mass for many fundamental particles, it also does the work of driving a wedge between the weak nuclear force and the electromagnetic force. The Higgs boson permeates all of space and time, and it plays a very important role. Scientists can assess the current stability of the vacuum of space-time by measuring the mass of the Higgs boson. Each of the phase transitions that occurred in the infant cosmos completely reworked the nature of reality, with the old order wiped away and new forces and new particles appearing to replace them. Shifting sandsīut the apparent stability of the universe due to its long lifetime may be an illusion. The past 13.8 billion years have been outright boring compared with the first few microseconds of the Big Bang. Eventually, stars were born and planets arose from their ashes. Fundamental particles coalesced to form nuclei, atoms and molecules. The four forces of nature have stayed the four forces of nature. Since then, everything's been pretty stable. ![]()
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