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Question?

Author: henry wilson
Posted: February 14, 2007 at 7:07AM

Do you think string theory has anything to do with the gravity dips surrounding masses? I saw a string vibrate and from the side it looks like dips I have seen in theory creations from artists that draw dips in space surrounding masses like stars and blackholes.

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Re: Question?

Author: Ed Lee
Posted: Feb 20, 2007 at 3:59PM

I passed Henry Wilson's question on to Steve Blau of Physics Today magazine, and here is his response.-- Ed Lee, Physics To Go site editor  

My answer to Henry Wilson would be "yes and no."  String theory has as a goal to be a theory of gravity. That's the yes part.  But the visual coincidence he noted is just that, a coincidence.  The string displacement is a displacement of physical string acted on by an external vibrator.  I'm not sure I understand the gravitational "dips in space" that he refers to but I'd guess they are either the warping of spacetime by a gravitational masses, or a potential energy diagram.  In either of those two cases, the physics is quite different from that of a vibrating physical string.

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