WORD WALL:
- Fermion: a subatomic particle that obey's the description given by Fermi and Dirac. (A particle with a spin that is half of an odd integer and where no more than one particle can exist in the same quantum state). *Obeying the exclusion principle.
- Boson: a subatomic particle that obey's the description given by S.N. Bose and Einstein. (A particle with an integral or zero spin that can exist in the same quantum state as another identical particle) *Not obeying the exclusion principle.
String Theory simply looks into particles
and their relationship. The point is to try and make sense of how the theory of
gravity and quantum physics are connectable. Quantum physics can describe
elementary particles but only when gravity is not factored into the equation. Relativity is great
at orbits, and evolution of space; however, in order for the theory to be
acceptable we need to take away any quantum mechanics that is used to describe Nature.
So, in order for these two different theories to fit together science has
invented another theory – String Theory. If you are like me then you want to
know the simplified version and that is what we will look at in this post.
String Theory is still evolving so all the
answers have not yet been found. The main thing to understand is that according
to this theory everything is made of energy and strings (vibrating
filaments if you want the technical term). Supersymmetry
is the relationship between bosons and fermions (particles). Also, the Universe has
more dimensions than we normally look at.
All right, so before we get lost in this
weird universe that things are made up of little strings we need to understand
what a ‘string’ in this sense actually is. Strings are supposed to be the building
blocks so, it is better to think of them as the start of everything
instead of actually having their own building blocks. Essentially, strings make
up the elementary particles (electrons…) that make up everything else. This is
all just talk though with no real mathematical proof having been made (at least
to my understanding).
Now, if you have not caught on and are
thinking ‘but wait maybe strings are made of energy’ – you are sadly wrong. I
can say this definitively since electrons or really any other elementary
particle is not made of energy, energy is simply a property NOT an actual
building block – it would be like saying the electron is made of momentum and
this is just to ridiculous.
Lets go back to the basic fundamentals of
String Theory and go a little deeper into supersymmetry, which is the concept
that every single particle will have a friend. The friend particles are
related. The naming is pretty easy, a fermion’s superpartner will have a ‘s’
prefix and a boson's superpartner will have an ‘ino’ suffix. An
example; the fermion electron will be partnered with a selectron, the boson
proton would be partnered with a photino.
Again, going back to the basics paragraph
you may be wondering why we need to imagine more dimensions. The answer is
simple for string theory to be mathematically correct there needs to be
more than the four dimensions. The scientists who use
this theory proposed that these extra dimensions are so tightly compact and
small that we just cannot detect them.
In the end, String Theory still has a bunch
of unanswered questions however; it is a way for quantum and gravity to work in
some sort of weird physics harmony.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/boson
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sysimages/Guardian/Science/contributors/2011/8/28/1314561399991/bosonsandfermionssmall.jpgw=620&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=05b7b7af59d6c7bbeabff4f099ec6110
