The Elegant Universe... Black Holes, SuperStrings, Quantam Physics, Wormholes all explained (mostly)

If any of you wonder about this stuff i HIGHLY recomend you watch this series from PBS! Its hosted by Brian Greene, researcher of the Super String theory.

This show contains very high production standards and seems to explain things that are very complicated in a simplified way that actually makes sense!

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Anyways this is a FREE download from the PBS website and if you have any interest in science at all, please do yourself a favor and watch this series!!!

The Elegant Universe

[Edited on 23-4-2004 by Calculon386]

it is a good series, yeah.

brian greene, in my opinion, is a bit of a hack. he claims to be smart and all, but this entire show is just others' work and none of his.

Yeah, he may not be making all the breakthroughs, but he seems to be a good front man. He definately knows what he's talking about too. He has written a few books on the subject as well...

ahh, the elegant universe. i stumbled upon these a few months back, and really enjoyed the show. these movies are not only very informative, but entertaining as well. these should be used in every physics class.

Thanks for the superb link, very informative indeed. No longer will I need to round up websites relating to this ever again

Thank you! I agree that this is the most informative/accurate info available for this type of stuff... since it covers much more than one topic thoughout the series... Spread the word!

yeah im reading the book right now its pretty good i like how he explains things

I'm currently reading "The Universe in a Nutshell" by Steven Hawking... The book is closely related to the series so far.. and it awesome.. (ie:it has pictures!) It's the follow up book to A Brief History of Time. I also go a different S.Hawking book "On the shoulders of Giants". Looks pretty good... its about all the previous pioneer of the field.




ps. Your from Indiana? Where bouts? I moved out here from Fort Wayne last year

[Edited on 19-4-2004 by Calculon386]

So, does anyone have any thoughts about SuperString Theory? It sounds so plausible, but it's major hangup is that it will probably never be able to be tested, since strings are just soooo tiny (much smaller than a quark).

Or what about 11 dimentional space the theory predicts? And that we only live on a membrane on the 3rd dimention.

The theory also seems to predict that the 'Big Bang' may have occurec from our membrane slamming into a higher dimentional membrane and releasing a nearly infinate amount of energy! AND that this may be a repeating process of massive death/rebirth.

I never though theorectical physics would be so interesting, i wish i was better at math! It would be exciting to be working in the Wild West of physics!

So that's it.. watch the series and post any questions or whatever right here!(please)

Ive read A Brief History of Time and it was a great book. What it this "The Universe in a Nutshell" mainly about? String theory or else?

I've only read a few chapters so far, but it seems to probe the Super String theory mainly and its branching subjects... It starts with an overview of relativity and goes on up to the present (and future) ideas on the subject(s). Its full of wonderful illustrations and doesnt seems to be too challenging of a read. I just happened to see it at the library and its good! If you liked Brief History at all.. this seems to continue on the same lines (but slightly simpler!) Enjoy!

By that definition, cmdr, you and I would also be hacks. Just because we don't make the discoveries doesn't mean we shouldn't share them! That's how information is propogated.

Another interesting site for this type of thing is:

www.mkaku.org...

Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of String Field Theory, and is the author of international best-selling books such as Hyperspace, Visions, and Beyond Einstein.

This guy ain't no hack niether

There is a beatiful description of 2d vs 3d and above on the main page.. good stuff!

Fantastic links! Thank you for posting them

Cheers,
Grey Pilgrim

Thank you thank you... Once I started watching the PBS series i was hooked! The best science show I think i've seen yet... too good to keep to myself!

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Okay.. well i guess that's it then.... No one has anything to say about SuperString theory or anything else discussed in the show (or book(s))? Oh well... thanks for the previous input!


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Ill definetly look into that! Also a good read is "A short history of nearly everything" By: bill bryson

I love theoretical physics, quantum, chaos, string theory etc.. I'll eat that stuff up all day. Some of the newer stuff with the string theory includes black holes, and how they might create a string by "stretching" atom components. Think of a 1000 mile proton or something similar. Yeah, the math part does suck. Math is flawed and doesn't apply in the form we use it to 99% of how things work in the universe so it's not all that necessary for theoretical work, but it does help.

One of the more interesting things I've read lately about String theory is how black holes may work. In "The Universe in a Nutshell" Steven Hawking describes a black hole as a possible intersection of dimensions. Just as a hologram is stored on a 2D medium and a record stores sound... this extra dimension could store the information from our 3D uninverse!

I thought strings were just smaller(est) building blocks of matter. Once we thought it was the Atom.. then the proton, neutron and mighty electron... then we discover the mysterious Quark... and strings supposedly make up an even smaller building block. So small, they will probably never be measured or detected. By vibrating at different frequencies, they produce different particles.

That 'intersection of dimensions' is so TOTALLY my idea.. god damn.. When they first hit they'd cause a white hole, which would peak as they moved through each other, and dissipate as they first began to move away.. Then, the remaining connection would warp spacetime, and form a black hole!


EDIT: Oh, just thought of something!

The amount of energy outside of the branes inside the bulk could be equivalent or greater than required unification energy, or, perhaps just the branes themselves sit at this energy.. would it be repulsive or attractive? Ah well, I'm willing to bet the unified force is attractive now.. it's got gravity in it, just may sway its effect towards constant attraction.. Anyrate, as the branes move through the bulk, the unified force pulls them together, but they are already moving, oh, wait.. hehehe, they need to get apart, they have separate amounts of energy, likely they would, after touching, equalise, and repel, so they pull together when different and pull away when equal! This would account fully for the ekpyrosian theory of brane-collision big bangs... must think.. back later..

[Edited on 23-4-2004 by Viendin]