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String Theory in Two Minutes
An anonymous reader writes "Most of us have heard of string theory, many of us know what it is and some of us may even be experts in the field. But could you explain it in two minutes? Discover Magazine recently had a contest to do precisely that: create a two minute or less video of everything you need to know about string theory. You can view some of the best entries (video) as well as the winning video: String Ducky!"
The 3 hours video of The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene also explains String Theory pretty well. Although the video is quite old, it was the first video that made me feel so interested and excited about String Theory.
that is correct, it seems to be more of a formality. in fact, it really can't be pinned down to a finite position or even a real "shape", its wavefunction is smeared across space. there is a finite proability of it being in a certain position at any given time just like electrons "going around" an atom. these strings can even "tunnel" bridging gaps that mathematically have exactly zero probability of the particle being there. an example of this is the electron cloud in p-orbitals in a Benzene ring. there is exactly zero electron density between the top p-orbital overlap ring and the lower one and yet electrons constantly interchange between the two in less than a trillionth of a second. blackholes exhibit peculiar behavior that can more easily be described by equations more fit in higher dimensional space in regard to spin and charge. higher dimensions have very interesting theoretical consequences [altered gravitational constants, mini blackholes accessible to high energy particle accelerators etc.] although theoretically these dimensions fold back on themselves so these "strings" are wrapped as well because their geoetry must also follow the space in which they inhabit.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Relax, it's just a comic.
The sibling post to this one may be correct and I may be flat out wrong, but my understanding was that a "string" can be described as a one dimensional object that has the ability to move through (probably) 11 dimensions.
Similar to how a "2 dimensional" object such as a piece of paper can happily be folded in 3 dimensions while still itself being 2 dimensional.
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Perhaps explaining String Theory (or Modified Newtonian Dynamics, or QCD, or etc..) in any amount of time is pointless. It takes longer to explain relativity and quantum mechanics; so explaining any of the theories which try to tie them together will be out of context and not many people learn things when out of context, even if they understand.
:)
My approach would be to explain (as Brian Greene does in T.E.U.) what the fundamental problems are with current theories: primarily is the glaring difference between gravity and the 'other' fundamental force -- the strong/weak-nuclear-electromagnetic force; however you want to call it, electroweak etc... but the other fundamental forces have been united and this leaves gravity by its lonesome. (Inject public interest with the mention that Einstein was trying to do unite gravity and electromagnetism before he died, if you so wish.)
That covers motivation uno and I think most of the public would be able to understand what gravity and EM are; you may be able to get away with saying the strong nuclear force is 'what holds atoms together', but I don't think you would have any way of explaining the weak nuclear force as it isn't relevant to Joe Public's day-to-day activities.
Then you would need to teach them the teeniest bit of science: namely, the point-particle approach. If you could get them to understand this then you may be able to impart that as you get smaller and smaller, the point particle is still infinitely small, and that there is a very clear problem with anything being infinitely small when you get to as small as you can get. String theory thus, instead of treating everything as infinitely minute 'points' _with no dimensions_ (a previously pointed out LIMIT - not flaw - to current models/approximations), takes the next obvious step and says okay, so instead of no dimensions we will have one dimension: a 'string'. Then you can cut to the XKCD comic, which someone linked to above
This is of course a heuristic explanation for the general public and in no way to be used as actual science, which most will not be able to understand due to missing four + years of solidly studying physics. It would be seemingly too hard to explain the Gamma function, super-symmetry, and crazy amounts of dimensions, all of which are academic. Note, I didn't need to explain quantum mechanics or relativity in the two minutes.
I don't want to start any flame wars; my belief is that there are _too many_ fundamental gaps in knowledge required to understand string theory, even on a qualitative level, for an average person. I argue that to teach one of these gaps would take more than the two minutes allowed.