Superstring theory

Superstring theory (or supersymmetric string theory) is an attempt to explain all of the particles and fundamental forces of nature in one theory by modelling them as vibrations of tiny supersymmetric strings. Since the second superstring revolution, the five superstring theories are regarded as different limits of a single theory tentatively called M-theory, or simply string theory.

Quotes

• Superstring theories demand our spacetime dimension to be 10, which means we should reduce them to an effectively 4-dimensional theory. The standard solution of string compactification, as a generalization of Kaluza-Klein compactification, renders the extra six dimensions Calabi-Yau (CY). Thus, the study of Calabi-Yau and algebraic geometry has entered the field of theoretical physics.
  • Jiakang Bao, Yang-Hui He, Edward Hirst, and Stephen Pietromonaco, (2020). "Lectures on the Calabi-Yau landscape". arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.01212. (quote from p. 4)

• Scientifically speaking, a butterfly is at least as mysterious as a superstring. When something ceases to be mysterious it ceases to be of absorbing interest to scientists. Almost all things scientists think and dream about are mysterious.
  • Freeman Dyson, in Infinite in All Directions (1988), Ch. 2 : Butterflies and Superstrings, p. 14

• Imagine, if you can, four things that have very different sizes. First, the entire universe. Second, the planet Earth. Third, the nucleus of an atom. Fourth, a superstring. The step in size from each of these things to the next is roughly the same... twenty powers of ten....
  • Freeman Dyson, in Infinite in All Directions (1988), Ch. 2 : Butterflies and Superstrings, p. 18

• What philosophical conclusions should we draw from the abstract style of the superstring theory? We might conclude, as Sir James Jeans concluded long ago, that the Great Architect of the Universe now begins to appear as a Pure Mathematician, and that if we work hard enough at mathematics we shall be able to read his mind. Or we might conclude that our pursuit of abstractions is leading us far away from those parts of the creation which are most interesting from a human point of view. It is too early yet to come to conclusions.
  • Freeman Dyson, in Infinite in All Directions (1988), Ch. 2 : Butterflies and Superstrings, p. 18

• I have noticed when I was younger, that lots of old men in the field couldn't understand new ideas very well, and resisted them with one method or another, and that they were very foolish in saying these ideas were wrong — such as Einstein not being able to take quantum mechanics. I’m an old man now, and these are new ideas, and they look crazy to me, and they look like they’re on the wrong track. Now I know that other old men have been very foolish in saying things like this, and, therefore, I would be very foolish to say this is nonsense. I am going to be very foolish, because I do feel strongly that this is nonsense! I can’t help it, even though I know the danger in such a point of view. So perhaps I could entertain future historians by saying I think all this superstring stuff is crazy and is in the wrong direction.
  • Richard Feynman, interview published in Superstrings: A Theory of Everything? (1988) edited by Paul C. W. Davies and Julian R. Brown

• I don’t like that they’re not calculating anything. I don’t like that for anything that disagrees with an experiment, they cook up an explanation – a fix-up to say 'Well. it still might be true'. For example, the theory requires ten dimensions. Well, maybe there's a way of wrapping up six of the dimensions. Yes, that's possible mathematically, but why not seven? When they write their equation, the equation should decide how many of these things get wrapped up, not the desire to agree with experiment. In other words, there's no reason whatsoever in superstring theory that it isn't eight of the ten dimensions that get wrapped up and that the result is only two dimensions, which would be completely in disagreement with experience. So the fact that it might disagree with experience is very tenuous, it doesn't produce anything; it has to be excused most of the time. It doesn't look right.
  • Richard Feynman, interview published in Superstrings: A Theory of Everything? (1988) edited by Paul C. W. Davies and Julian R. Brown

• Of all the fields in fundamental physical theory, the gravitational field is picked out as controlling, in Einsteinian fashion, the structure of space-time. This is true even in a unified description of all the fields and all the particles of nature. Today, in superstring theory, we have the first respectable candidate for such a theory, apparently finite in perturbation theory and describing, roughly speaking, an infinite set of local fields, one of which is the gravitational field linked to the metric of space-time. If all the other fields are dropped, the theory becomes an Einsteinian theory of gravitation.
  • Murray Gell-Mann: (1989). "Dick Feynman—The Guy in the Office Down the Hall". Physics Today 42 (2): 50–54. DOI:10.1063/1.881192. (quote, pp. 52–53)

• The notion of a smooth spatial geometry, the central principle of general relativity, is destroyed by the violent fluctuations of the quantum world on short distance scales. ...The equations of general relativity cannot handle the rolling frenzy of the quantum foam. ...
  Physicists have made numerous attempts at modifying either general relativity or quantum mechanics in some manner so as to avoid the conflict, but the attempts... have been met with failure after failure.
  That is, until the discovery of superstring theory.
  • Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe (1999) Ch. 5 The Need for a New Theory: General Relativity vs. Quantum Mechanics.

• Superstring theory starts off by proposing a new answer to an old question: what are the smallest, indivisible constituents of matter? For many decades, the conventional answer has been that matter is composed of particles... that can be modeled as dots that are indivisible and that have no size and no internal structure. Conventional theory claims, and experiments confirm, that these particles combine in various ways to produce protons, neutrons, and a wide variety of atoms and molecules... Superstring theory tells a different story. ...it does claim that these particles are not dots. Instead... every particle is composed of a tiny filament of energy, some hundred billion billion times smaller than a single atomic nucleus, which is shaped like a string. And just as a violin string can vibrate in different patterns, each of which produces a different musical tone, the filaments of superstring theory can also vibrate in different patterns. But these vibrations... produce different particle properties. ...All species of particles are unified in superstring theory since each arises from a different vibrational pattern executed by the same underlying entity.
  • Brian Greene, in The Fabric of the Cosmos : Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality (2004), p. 17