As for the forces, electromagnetism and gravity we experience in everyday life. But the weak and strong forces are beyond our ordinary experience. So in physics, lots of the basic building blocks take 20th- or perhaps 21st-century equipment to explore.
Meaning of the quote
In our everyday lives, we experience two main forces: electromagnetism and gravity. But there are also two other forces, called the weak and strong forces, that we can't see or feel. To understand these more complex forces and the smallest building blocks of the universe, scientists need very advanced equipment that was only invented in the 20th or 21st century.
About Edward Witten
Edward Witten is an acclaimed American theoretical physicist known for his groundbreaking contributions to string theory, topological quantum field theory, and various areas of mathematics. He is a renowned professor and researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and his work has had a significant impact on both physics and pure mathematics.
More quotes from Edward Witten
One of the basic things about a string is that it can vibrate in many different shapes or forms, which gives music its beauty.
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Quantum mechanics brought an unexpected fuzziness into physics because of quantum uncertainty, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
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There was a long history of speculation that in quantum gravity, unlike Einstein’s classical theory, it might be possible for the topology of spacetime to change.
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As far as extra dimensions are concerned, very tiny extra dimensions wouldn’t be perceived in everyday life, just as atoms aren’t: we see many atoms together but we don’t see atoms individually.
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On the other hand, we don’t understand the theory too completely, and because of this fuzziness of spacetime, the very concept of spacetime and spacetime dimensions isn’t precisely defined.
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String theory is an attempt at a deeper description of nature by thinking of an elementary particle not as a little point but as a little loop of vibrating string.
American theoretical physicist
But the beauty of Einstein’s equations, for example, is just as real to anyone who’s experienced it as the beauty of music. We’ve learned in the 20th century that the equations that work have inner harmony.
American theoretical physicist
As of now, string theorists have no explanation of why there are three large dimensions as well as time, and the other dimensions are microscopic. Proposals about that have been all over the map.
American theoretical physicist
Technically you need the extra dimensions. At first people didn’t like them too much, but they’ve got a big benefit, which is that the ability of string theory to describe all the elementary particles and their forces along with gravity depends on using the extra dimensions.
American theoretical physicist
You have that one basic string, but it can vibrate in many ways. But we’re trying to get a lot of particles because experimental physicists have discovered a lot of particles.
American theoretical physicist
If I take the theory as we have it now, literally, I would conclude that extra dimensions really exist. They’re part of nature. We don’t really know how big they are yet, but we hope to explore that in various ways.
American theoretical physicist
The theory has to be interpreted that extra dimensions beyond the ordinary four dimensions the three spatial dimensions plus time are sufficiently small that they haven’t been observed yet.
American theoretical physicist
Having those extra dimensions and therefore many ways the string can vibrate in many different directions turns out to be the key to being able to describe all the particles that we see.
American theoretical physicist
I wouldn’t have thought that a wrong theory should lead us to understand better the ordinary quantum field theories or to have new insights about the quantum states of black holes.
American theoretical physicist
In Einstein’s general relativity the structure of space can change but not its topology. Topology is the property of something that doesn’t change when you bend it or stretch it as long as you don’t break anything.
American theoretical physicist
It’s indeed surprising that replacing the elementary particle with a string leads to such a big change in things. I’m tempted to say that it has to do with the fuzziness it introduces.
American theoretical physicist
Spreading out the particle into a string is a step in the direction of making everything we’re familiar with fuzzy. You enter a completely new world where things aren’t at all what you’re used to.
American theoretical physicist
As for the forces, electromagnetism and gravity we experience in everyday life. But the weak and strong forces are beyond our ordinary experience. So in physics, lots of the basic building blocks take 20th- or perhaps 21st-century equipment to explore.
American theoretical physicist
So when you ask me how string theory might be tested, I can tell you what’s likely to happen at accelerators or some parts of the theory that are likely to be tested.
American theoretical physicist
Even before string theory, especially as physics developed in the 20th century, it turned out that the equations that really work in describing nature with the most generality and the greatest simplicity are very elegant and subtle.
American theoretical physicist