Thursday, October 27, 2011

The Appeal of String Theory to a Taoist

The Philosophical Appeal of String Theory
by Ta-Wan


String Theory has great appeal because it gets right to the core with little missing, no room for error, no room for god or mystery and is very philosophical nature. This philosophical leaning is what leads many scientists to dismiss it "unprovable, like philosophy" they say.

Strings are so minute you could never imagine, fantastically smaller than any particle you've ever been asked to imagine. Excellently for me string theory drops the old Newtonian idea of 'little balls spinning around one another' for good. Removing the conundrum of the infinite regression of splitting something only to remain with smaller parts you now wish to spilt.

Strings are either loops, like the one causing gravity and witnessed by school children who place iron filings near a magnet, or like open two ended strings. Strings vibrate, they vibrate in 11 dimensions and we see the result of 3, feel the result of 1 (gravity) and count our days in another, time. We are not sure we interact with the others, maybe we do but until then we'll say they are dark, unseeable, in nature.

The vibrations can ring on so many notes we'll never hear but some common vibration patterns will seem like standing waves to us and children will be able to rub some off a balloon and play with the static charge and scientists will be able to smash some waves and call the resulting burst of energy a particle. These waves have set amplitudes so lead to assumptions of a group of particles with repeatedly constant values.

There are no parts or particles in string theory though only a reason for why we think we see them. String theory is all about a vibration. My only remaining questions as I marvel at it are: what vibrating in what and what of awareness? How are we aware of all this? Are strings thought patterns in the great awareness? Does this now fall flat at yet another infinite regression? Maybe opening up those final dimensions we can answer these questions.

Unfortunately, I'm not that smart.

Fortunately, I'm not that smart... Maybe the mystery is much better than the answer.

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

3 comments:

  1. Of course you've heard this one:

    A string walks into a bar.

    He asks for a shot of tequila. The bartender replies "Sorry we don't serve strings." So the string leaves.

    The next day, the same string walks back into the bar. He asks for a shot of tequila. The bartender replies, "Sorry we do not serve strings, please go away."

    The following day the string stands outside the bar debating about whether to go in or not. He ties himself in a knot and frays the bottom of the string.

    He goes in and asks for a shot of tequila. The bartender replys "Hey aren't you that string that's been coming in here all the time."

    They string replies, "No I'm a frayed knot".

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha, yes I have hard it but that kind of joke is among my favorite. Like the motor wrist and the engine ear.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i believe useing the pyramids one day we will be able 2 work WITH strings telekinetically,there nothing that do everything, i believe we r there sub concious,i also believe the nearest black hole leads to orions belt.

    ReplyDelete

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