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
magic taste mystery
M stands for Magic, Mystery, or Matrixaccording to taste
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.
giving shapes different
One of the basic things about a string is that it can vibrate in many different shapes or forms, which gives music its beauty.
moon nasty newton
1/r^2 has a nasty singularity at r=0, but it did not bother Newton-the Moon is far enough.
physics strings theory
String theory is 21 st century physics that fell accidentally into the 20th century.
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.
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.
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.
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.
understanding bangs consciousness
I have a much easier time imagining how we would understand the big bang, even though we can't do it yet, than I can imagine understanding consciousness.
thinking littles strings
String theory is an attempt at a deeper description of nature by thinking of an elementary particle not as a little point but as a little loop of vibrating string.
teamwork everyday together
As far as extra dimensions are concerned, very tiny extra dimensions wouldn't be perceived in everyday life, just as atoms aren't: we see many atoms together but we don't see atoms individually.