• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2079 0

Kovacs, David Lee, Megan McEwen, Nari Mistry, Hasan Padamsee, Ronen Plesser, Massimo Poratti, Fred Sherry, Lars Straeter, Steven Strogatz, Andrew Strominger, Henry Tye, Cumrun Vafa, and Gabriele Veneziano. I owe special thanks to Raphael Gunner for, among many other things, his insightful criticisms at an early stage of writing that helped to shape the overall form of the book, and to Robert Malley for his gentle but persistent encouragement to go beyond thinking about the book and to put "pen to paper." Steven Weinberg and Sidney Coleman offered valuable advice and assistance, and it is a pleasure to acknowledge many helpful interactions with Carol Archer, Vicky Carstens, David Cassel, Anne Coyle, Michael Duncan, Jane Forman, Wendy Greene, Susan Greene, Erik Jendresen, Gary Kass, Shiva Kumar, Robert Mawhinney, Pam Morehouse, Pierre Ramond, Amanda Salles, and Eero Simoncelli. I am indebted to Costas Efthimiou for his help in fact-checking and reference-finding, and for turning my initial sketches into line drawings from which Tom Rockwell created—with the patience of a saint and a masterful artistic eye—the figures that illustrate the text. I also thank Andrew Hanson and Jim Sethna for their help in preparing a few of the specialized figures.

For agreeing to be interviewed and to lend their personal perspectives on various topics covered I thank Howard Georgi, Sheldon Glashow, Michael Green, John Schwarz, John Wheeler, Edward Witten, and, again, Andrew Strominger, Cumrun Vafa, and Gabriele Veneziano.

I am happy to acknowledge the penetrating insights and invaluable suggestions of Angela Von der Lippe and the sharp sensitivity to detail of Traci Nagle, my editors at W. W. Norton, both of whom significantly enhanced the clarity of the presentation. I also thank my literary agents, John Brockman and Katinka Matson, for their expert guidance in shepherding the book from inception to publication.

For generously supporting my research in theoretical physics for more than a decade and a half, I gratefully acknowledge the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy. It is perhaps not surprising that my own research has focused on the impact superstring theory has on our conception of space and time, and in a couple of the later chapters I describe some of the discoveries in which I had the fortune to take part. Although I hope the reader will enjoy reading these "inside" accounts, I realize that they may leave an exaggerated impression of the role I have played in the development of superstring theory. So let me take this opportunity to acknowledge the more than one thousand physicists around the world who are crucial and dedicated participants in the effort to fashion the ultimate theory of the universe. I apologize to all whose work is not included in this account; this merely reflects the thematic perspective I have chosen and the length limitations of a general presentation.

Finally, I owe heartfelt thanks to Ellen Archer for her unwavering love and support, without which this book would not have been written.

The Elegant Universe

Part I

The Edge of Knowledge

Chapter 1

Tied Up with String

Calling it a cover-up would be far too dramatic. But for more than half a century—even in the midst of some of the greatest scientific achievements in history—physicists have been quietly aware of a dark cloud looming on a distant horizon. The problem is this: There are two foundational pillars upon which modern physics rests. One is Albert Einstein's general relativity, which provides a theoretical framework for understanding the universe on the largest of scales: stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and beyond to the immense expanse of the universe itself. The other is quantum mechanics, which provides a theoretical framework for understanding the universe on the smallest of scales: molecules, atoms, and all the way down to subatomic particles like electrons and quarks. Through years of research, physicists have experimentally confirmed to almost unimaginable