Unification was Einstein’s dream and is therefore at least a 100 year old struggle. The past four decades have been in pursuit of string theory which is in fact a theory potentially explaining how weak, strong, electromagnetism and gravity can be combined in a single framework.
Since 1979, Physicists are confidently trying to come up with a theory of everything that would unify four known forces of nature by combining Einstein’s Theory of Relativity with Quantum Theory. The String Theory is an effort in precisely that direction.
According to the String theory, the building block of matter are strings which are in fact bands of energy vibrating at various frequencies. The frequency would determine what particle a particular type of strings would make. This theory opens the gateway to new dimensions and goes ahead to predict up to 10 spatial dimensions.
The 10 dimensions include the three we all are quite familiar with which are up-down, back and forth, left and right. In other words, the three dimensional space we all are quite familiar with, is a part of the String theory. However, the additional seven dimensions predicted by string theory are very small and therefore we cannot witness or feel them. They are curled up at subatomic levels.
String theory is also a major attempt towards understanding the origin of the universe. There are multiple possibilities regarding the origin, which are predicted by the String theory. One of those possibilities is a multiverse. Put simply, the argument that the universe we live in is a single super structure of space-time, is challenged by the concept of the possibilities of other such super structures which might have their very own properties. In fact the number of such universe could be infinite. This idea stemming from the String theory is also known as Parallel Universes.
In addressing the question regarding whether String theory is worth that much, we can say that we have done good, we have not succeeded in our no.1 objective but over the course of all these years, Cosmology has made a significant progress and Physicists are still confident.
The discovery of Higgs Boson in 2012 in the Large Hadron Collider, the god particle that gives mass to every other particle is in itself a big achievement that has opened new avenues in particle physics and cosmology at large.
Whether the String theory has that potential to become the theory of everything and give us an equation that would unify all four known forces of nature which are weak force, strong force, electromagnetic force and gravity, is a matter of debate among physicists. One group of physicists believes that the theory is our ultimate gateway towards unlocking the mystery of the big-bang. The other group believes that String theory is not capable of answering the big questions we are investigating and hence other avenues should now be explored, instead of excessive reliance on it. What do you believe? Tell us in the comments below!
Project Cosmos 