When I was in high school, I was really into string theory and superstring theory and read 'Scientific American.' It's fascinating.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
There are a lot of good things about string theory, and it's great that some people want to work on it.
I do feel strongly that string theory is our best hope for making progress at unifying gravity and quantum mechanics.
The most important single thing about string theory is that it's a highly mathematical theory, and the mathematics holds together in a very tight and consistent way. It contains in its basic structure both quantum mechanics and the theory of gravity. That's big news.
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.
In order to achieve a true understanding of string theory, some new idea will be required, and most likely, some break with the concepts on which we've traditionally based physical theory.
String theory has had a long and wonderful history. It originated as a technique to try to understand the strong force. It was a calculational mechanism, a way of approaching a mathematical problem that was too difficult, and it was a promising way, but it was only a technique. It was a mathematical technique rather than a theory in itself.
Ever since I was a kid, I've had an enormous interest in the sciences - everything from quantum physics to anthropology.
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.
Einstein was searching for String Theory. It not only reconciles General Relativity to Quantum Mechanics, but it reconciles Science and the Bible as well.
I spent most of my career doing high-energy physics, quarks, dark matter, string theory and so on.
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