Wikipedia Profile - Edward Witten - considered that the five different versions of string theory might be describing the same thing seen from different perspectives. wikipedia.org
Witten has made contributions to theoretical physics, in work that has spawned a large number of highly mathematical results. As of August, 2011, he has more than 340 publications primarily in quantum field theory and string theory and in related areas of topology and geometry. In 2004, Time magazine wrote that Witten was "generally considered the greatest theoretical physicist in the world."
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| Edward Witten with David Gross and Stephen Hawking. |
In 1994, a string theorist named Edward Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study and other important researchers considered that the five different versions of string theory might be describing the same thing seen from different perspectives. They proposed a unifying theory called "M-theory", in which the "M" is not specifically defined, but is generally understood to stand for "membrane". The words "matrix", "mother", "monster", "mystery", "magic" have also been claimed. M-theory brought all of the string theories together. It did this by asserting that strings are really 1-dimensional slices of a 2-dimensional membrane vibrating in 11-dimensional space.
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M-theory is not yet complete, but the underlying structure of the mathematics has been established and is in agreement with not only all the string theories, but with all of our scientific observations of the universe.[citation needed] Furthermore, it has passed many tests of internal mathematical consistency that many other attempts to combine quantum mechanics and gravity had failed.[citation needed]
Until we can find some way to observe higher dimensions (impossible with our current level of technology) M-theory has a very difficult time making predictions that can be tested in a laboratory.[citation needed] Technologically, it may never be possible for it to be "proven".[citation needed]
Some cosmologists are drawn to M-theory because of its mathematical elegance and relative simplicity. Physicist and author Michio Kaku has remarked that M-theory may present us with a "Theory of Everything" which is so concise that its underlying formula would fit on a t-shirt.[1] Stephen Hawking originally believed that M-theory may be the ultimate theory but later suggested that the search for understanding of mathematics and physics will never be complete.[2]
Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, in The Grand Design, take a philosophical position to support a view of the universe as a multiverse, and define it in the book as model-dependent realism which along with a sum over histories approach (see Path integral formulation of Quantum Mechanics) to the universe as a whole, is used to claim that M-theory is the only candidate for a complete theory of the universe.
Read more about the introduction to M- theory
Read more about the introduction to M- theory
