MadSci Network: Physics
Query:

Re: Could String Theory extra dimensions 'house' entangled matter properties?

Date: Wed Jun 23 22:36:49 2004
Posted By: Phillip Henry, Staff, Physics, Lockheed Martin & Florida Tech
Area of science: Physics
ID: 1084655218.Ph
Message:

Excellent question Andre. The basic premise of string theory is that 
everything reduces to strings and everything comes from strings. These 
strings come in two flavors - open (like a dangling piece of string) and 
closed (like a rubber band if you will). One can excite modes on these 
strings (very analogous to playing musical notes, except in a highly 
multidimensional space -- more on that later) which give rise to all the 
observed matter and the force carriers (the W/Z meson and the photon 
(govern the electroweak force), the gluon (the strong nuclear force), and 
perhaps most important, the graviton - the quantum force carrier particle 
for quantum gravity. It provides a natural framework for the emergence of 
the correct particle needed to describe quantum gravity. This gave string 
theory a big boost in interest since a quantum mechanical description of 
gravity is the missing link of physics - the standard model (modern 
quantum mechanics) cannot describe gravity. General Relativity 
(Einstein's theory of gravity) does a marvelous job of describing 
gravity - but it is strictly classical, and breaks down in regions where 
quantum physics should become important (say, the interior of a black 
hole).

The price one pays for this little miricle is mathematics. The current 
theory holds there are 11 dimensions - 3 normal space, 1 time, 6 tightly 
curled up dimensions, and a stretching of a string into a membrane for 
the 11th dimension. If this doesn't make your head spin, I don't know 
what will. String theory (or more correctly, M-theory or sometime 
superstring theory) is in its infancy. We do not know the exact starting 
equations for the theory and we do not generally have exact solutions for 
the equations we do have. Furthermore, the exact geometry of this tightly 
curled up 6 dimensions is still debated as there are various geometries 
which work (Calibi Yau geometry) and they can't all be right.

Now these extra 6 dimensions are very tightly curled up (roughly 0.1 
micro-nano-nano-nanometers (10^-30 cm), so that a nanometer is a huge 
distance in comparison. Vibrational modes of the strings can make use of 
these extra dimensions, but to the physical world - they are invisible. 
Imagine if you will a power line at a distance. At long range, the power 
line looks 1-dimensional. If you get up very close, you can see it is 3-
dimensional. So to answer your question about the speed of light, the 
photon would travel at the regular speed of light in our 4-dimensional 
space-time. To make a photon, strings would vibrate in these extra 
dimensions. But light would not actually propogate in the curled up 
dimensions. There is an interesting side to this multidimensional 
situation. There is a superstring theory which allows gravitons to exert 
influence through the extra dimensions - perhaps offering a new 
theoretical framework for dark matter and dark energy. Still, I must 
caution that there is still much that is not understood about string 
theory and the theory itself is not proven. There is tantalizing evidence 
starting to emerge which support string theory - but the road ahead is 
long and foggy.

for more info:
http://www.superstringtheory.com/
http://www.strings.ph.qmw.ac.uk/WhatIs/Nutshell.html


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