When loops become strings

• Autores: Jon Cartwright
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3116, 2017, págs. 28-31
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Physicists have long believed they must pin their hopes on just one contender. But as the two rivals walk back into the ring, there's a turn-up for the books: they reach out for a handshake. Here, Cartwright talks about string theory, a complex construct that has long had pretensions to be theory of everything. Just as a musical string sounds different on a violin or a cello, so in string theory, a string's vibration pattern determines what kind of particle it manifests as: it can "sound" like a quark, electron or photon. And among the oscillation modes of these strings is something that looks not like an established particle, but like a graviton--a quantum particle that transmits gravity and gives structure to space-time