"The Elegant Universe": First Entry

In Brain Greene's explorative novel, readers learn about the "two fundamental pillars upon which modern physics rest", which are Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity which explains the big stuff, like the solar system, the cosmos, and the universe. Quantum mechanics is the second, explaining the small stuff like atoms. The problem facing modern physicists is that the theories "cannot both be right" since they contradict each other, even though both are scientifically correct. The major issues in physics throughout the past century have categorized as "The Three Conflicts". The first conflict is motion of light, special relativity is the second. Both of the two Einstein solved. The third, is still being questioned. It is the "incompatibility between quantum mechanics and general relativity".

That is where the string, or superstring, comes into play. The string theory is being tested in order to bond the two theories together seamlessly to become the "theory of everything", or T.O.E. The string theory has been developed in such a way that the two theories are not only coordinating with each other, but they are are dependent on one another to be effective.

The string theory is a small part of modern physics, which has discovered that there is more under the microscope than just the proton, neutron, and electron. Physicists have predicted particles like neutrinos, "ghostly particles that rarely interact with other matter", and muons, that are identical to electrons, except 200 times heavier. It is also predicted that protons and neutrons are not empty, that they are filled with quarks. A proton has an upward quark and a downward quark while a neutron has two downward quarks and one upward quark. However that isn't the ultimate stopping point predicted. The string theory predicts that our entire universe, all those electrons and quarks, are filled with little strings of energy, similar to infinitesimal rubber bands. Just like how different vibrations of the strings differentiate each note from the next on a violin, the different vibrations of strings is what differentiates one particle from the next.

It may not be the ultimate theory of everything, and if it is, the math necessary to understand the string theory still stumps the most venerated mathematicians and scientists in the world. If it is true (there has been no experimental evidence supporting the theory), it will take many years to fully understand. This may just be a portal into something with more depth than the string theory, the "M-theory".