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
nature way dimensions
If I take the theory as we have it now, literally, I would conclude that extra dimensions really exist. They're part of nature. We don't really know how big they are yet, but we hope to explore that in various ways.
change space long
In Einstein's general relativity the structure of space can change but not its topology. Topology is the property of something that doesn't change when you bend it or stretch it as long as you don't break anything.
trying paper tendencies
I have a tendency, more than most other physicists, to try to figure out everything all at once, before I publish. And even to try to figure out everything in my head, without pencil and paper.
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.
time maps dimensions
As of now, string theorists have no explanation of why there are three large dimensions as well as time, and the other dimensions are microscopic. Proposals about that have been all over the map.
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.
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.
world used new-world
You enter a completely new world where things aren't at all what you're used to.
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.
knows
We know a lot of things, but what we don't know is a lot more.
long might gravity
There was a long history of speculation that in quantum gravity, unlike Einstein's classical theory, it might be possible for the topology of spacetime to change.
physics strings theory
String theory is 21 st century physics that fell accidentally into the 20th century.
magic taste mystery
M stands for Magic, Mystery, or Matrixaccording to taste
moon nasty newton
1/r^2 has a nasty singularity at r=0, but it did not bother Newton-the Moon is far enough.