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point that supersymmetry relieves us from the delicate task of tuning numerical parameters in the standard model to avoid subtle quantum problems—but you might argue that the true theory describing nature may very well walk the fine edge between self-consistency and self-destruction. We have discussed how supersymmetry modifies the intrinsic strengths of the three nongravitational forces at tiny distances in just the right way for them to merge together into a grand unified force—but you might argue, again, that nothing in the design of nature dictates that these force strengths must exactly match on microscopic scales. And finally, you might suggest that a simpler explanation for why the superpartner particles have never been found is that our universe is not supersymmetric and, therefore, the superpartners do not exist.

No one can refute any of these responses. But the case for supersymmetry is strengthened immensely when we consider its role in string theory.

Supersymmetry in String Theory

The original string theory that emerged from Veneziano's work in the late 1960s incorporated all of the symmetries discussed at the beginning of this chapter, but it did not incorporate supersymmetry (which had not yet been discovered). This first theory based on the string concept was, more precisely, called the bosonic string theory. The name bosonic indicates that all of the vibrational patterns of the bosonic string have spins that are a whole number—there are no fermionic patterns, that is, no patterns with spins differing from a whole number by a half unit. This led to two problems.

First, if string theory was to describe all forces and all matter, it would somehow have to incorporate fermionic vibrational patterns, since the known matter particles all have spin-1/2. Second, and far more troubling, was the realization that there was one pattern of vibration in bosonic string theory whose mass (more precisely, whose mass squared) was negative—a so-called tachyon. Even before string theory, physicists had studied the possibility that our world might have tachyon particles, in addition to the familiar particles that all have positive masses, but their efforts showed that it is difficult if not impossible for such a theory to be logically sensible. Similarly, in the context of bosonic string theory, physicists tried all sorts of fancy footwork to make sense of the bizarre prediction of a tachyon vibrational pattern, but to no avail. These features made it increasingly clear that although it was an interesting theory, the bosonic string was missing something essential.

In 1971, Pierre Ramond of the University of Florida took up the challenge of modifying the bosonic string theory to include fermionic patterns of vibration. Through his work and subsequent results of Schwarz and Andre Neveu, a new version of string theory began to emerge. And much to everyone's surprise, the bosonic and the fermionic patterns of vibration of this new theory appeared to come in pairs. For each bosonic pattern there was a fermionic pattern, and vice versa. By 1977, insights of Ferdinando Gliozzi of the University of Turin, Scherk, and David Olive of Imperial College put this pairing into the proper light. The new string theory incorporated supersymmetry, and the observed pairing of bosonic and fermionic vibrational patterns reflected this highly symmetric character. Supersymmetric string theory—superstring theory, that is—had been born. Moreover, the work of Gliozzi, Scherk, and Olive had one other crucial result: They showed that the troublesome tachyon vibration of the bosonic string does not afflict the superstring. Slowly, the pieces of the string puzzle were falling into place.

Nevertheless, the major initial impact of the work of Ramond, and also of Neveu and Schwarz, was not actually in string theory. By 1973, the physicists Julius Wess and Bruno Zumino realized that supersymmetry—the new symmetry emerging from the reformulation of string theory—was applicable even to theories based on point particles. They rapidly made important strides toward