Andrew Zimmerman Jones - String Theory For Dummies

1 Cover

2 Title Page

3 Copyright

4 Table of Contents

5 Begin Reading

6 Index

7 About the Authors

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Why are scientists so excited about string theory? Because string theory is the most likely candidate for a successful theory of quantum gravity — a theory that scientists hope will unite two major physical laws of the universe into one. Right now, these laws (quantum physics and general relativity) describe two totally different types of behavior in totally different ways, and in the realm where neither theory works completely, we really don’t know what’s going on!

Understanding the implications of string theory means understanding profound aspects of our reality at the most fundamental levels. Is there only one law of nature or infinitely many? Why does our universe follow the laws it does? Is time travel possible? How many dimensions does our universe possess? Physicists are passionately seeking answers to these questions.

Indeed, string theory is a fascinating topic, a scientific revolution that promises to transform our understanding of the universe. As you’ll see, these types of revolutions have happened before, and this book helps you understand how physics has developed in the past, as well as how it may develop in the future.

This book contains some ideas that will probably, in the coming years, turn out to be completely false. (We can guarantee this was true about the first edition, and we have no reason to expect it won’t also be true of this second edition.) It contains other ideas that may ultimately prove to be fundamental laws of our universe, perhaps forming the foundation for entirely new fields of science and technology. No one knows what the future holds for string theory.

In this book, we aim to give a clear understanding of the ever-evolving scientific subfield known as string theory. The media is abuzz with talk about this “theory of everything,” and when you’re done with this book, you should know what they’re talking about (probably better than they do, most of the time).

In writing this book, we’ve attempted to serve several masters. First and foremost among them has been scientific accuracy, followed closely by entertainment value. Along the way, we’ve also done our best to use language that you can understand no matter your scientific background, and we’ve certainly tried to keep any mathematics to a minimum.

We set out to achieve the following goals with this book:

Provide the information needed to understand string theory (including established physics concepts that predate string theory).

Establish the successes of string theory so far.