String Theory

Sorry for not posting lately! I've been caught up in a lot of school work. Anyway, here goes!

What is the nature of the universe? What is our purpose here? There are so many unanswered questions about everything and countless theories that attempt to explain these questions. One such theory that aims to tie together basically everything we know is string theory. It provides explanations for questions like "What is the universe made of?" and "Why and how does anything exist?". Although it appears very promising, there are still many unresolved areas in the theory, hence the reason it is not widely accepted as the theory of everything. 

String theory is the idea that the smallest building blocks of the universe are not point particles, but rather incredibly small strings. If these elementary particles are point particles, they are not complex enough to take into account all physical and mathematical principles. So, some smart, smart people asked, "What if they were not point particles, but rather lines, or strings?". Here string theory was born. The said that all matter is made up of the same strings but can be different due to the different vibrations of that string. For example, the particle can be a quark if it vibrates at a certain frequency, while it may be a neutrino if it vibrated in a slightly different way. It is a little bit confusing (like the entirety of quantum mechanics), but it provides a hypothetical answer to what the nature of reality really is.

Fig. 1
Particles in different modes of vibration

This theory seems all well and good until we realized that the mathematics for string theory does not work out in our 4-dimensional universe (we can only perceive 3-dimensions), but bizarrely only works out in a 10-dimensional universe. For this reason, string theory has not yet been accepted into the laws of quantum physics. However, string theory still has applications in the real world, although it is yet to exist as its own theory.

String theory is a really open-ended subject, so please feel free to watch this great video to enhance your understanding - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da-2h2B4faU

What do you think of string theory? Please leave your feedback in the comments!