October 20, 2006
Strings
String theory is in for bad times. It’s the notion that all the particles that make up the universe and all four of its forces — including that elusive gravity — are made up of tiny vibrating string-like filaments sort of like those leaping off a cello in full blast. For the twenty years of its study, its students have hoped it would be the answer to Einstein’s dream of a unified field theory, a theory that would stitch all of nature’s forces into a single, tightly-woven mathematical tapestry.
Trouble is, it’s yet to come up with anything more than questions and only skirts with the answers so many seek. So the top-gun astrophysicists are beginning to cast it aside for greener pastures [if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor].
It’s too bad. Maybe they should have listened more carefully to Dr Sinatra who had it in the palm of his hand all along when he sang…
I’ve got the world on a string
Sitting on a rainbow
Got the string around my finger
What a world, what a life - I’m in love
I’ve got a song that I sing
I can make the rain go
Any time I move my finger
Lucky me, can’t you see - I’m in love
And life is a beautiful thing
As long as I hold the string
I’d be a silly so and so
If I should ever let go
I’ve got the world on a string
Sitting on a rainbow
Got the string around my finger
What a world, what a life - I’m in love