Edward Witten
Edward Witten
Edward Wittenis an American theoretical physicist and professor of mathematical physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMathematician
Date of Birth26 August 1951
CountryUnited States of America
differences knowing
There is a difference between knowing what is true and knowing why it is true
regardless supposed
Regardless of any deviations, it was clear I was supposed to end up in math and physics.
It's an exaggeration to say that I came up with M-theory.
trying
If you are a researcher, you are trying to figure out what the question is as well as what the answer is.
discovered particles physicists trying vibrate
You have that one basic string, but it can vibrate in many ways. But we're trying to get a lot of particles because experimental physicists have discovered a lot of particles.
along depends describe elementary forces particles people string theory using
Technically you need the extra dimensions. At first people didn't like them too much, but they've got a big benefit, which is that the ability of string theory to describe all the elementary particles and their forces along with gravity depends on using the extra dimensions.
describe directions particles string therefore turns vibrate ways
Having those extra dimensions and therefore many ways the string can vibrate in many different directions turns out to be the key to being able to describe all the particles that we see.
badminton movies tend
I don't care about movies. I tend to play badminton once a week.
concept precisely theory
On the other hand, we don't understand the theory too completely, and because of this fuzziness of spacetime, the very concept of spacetime and spacetime dimensions isn't precisely defined.
black fields ordinary
I wouldn't have thought that a wrong theory should lead us to understand better the ordinary quantum field theories or to have new insights about the quantum states of black holes.
world used new-world
You enter a completely new world where things aren't at all what you're used to.
time three four
The theory has to be interpreted that extra dimensions beyond the ordinary four dimensions the three spatial dimensions plus time are sufficiently small that they haven't been observed yet.
music real example
But the beauty of Einstein's equations, for example, is just as real to anyone who's experienced it as the beauty of music. We've learned in the 20th century that the equations that work have inner harmony.
change introducing bigs
It's indeed surprising that replacing the elementary particle with a string leads to such a big change in things. I'm tempted to say that it has to do with the fuzziness it introduces.