These dimensions were folded in on themselves - or “compactified” - into complex origami shapes. The strings were too small to be probed by experiment and lived in as many as 11 dimensions of space. To be sure, the theory came with unsettling implications. At last, it seemed, here was a workable theory of quantum gravity.Įven more beautiful than the story told in words was the elegance of the math behind it, which had the power to make some physicists ecstatic. For one, quantum uncertainty couldn’t rip space-time to shreds. Avoiding the infinitely small meant avoiding a variety of catastrophes. The vibrations would sing out quarks, electrons, gluons and photons, as well as their extended families, producing in harmony every ingredient needed to cook up the knowable world. It seemed, to paraphrase Michael Faraday, much too wonderful not to be true: Simply replace infinitely small particles with tiny (but finite) vibrating loops of string. I am sure it will be widely read.String theory strutted onto the scene some 30 years ago as perfection itself, a promise of elegant simplicity that would solve knotty problems in fundamental physics - including the notoriously intractable mismatch between Einstein’s smoothly warped space-time and the inherently jittery, quantized bits of stuff that made up everything in it. The authors have skillfully made a selection of topics aimed at helping the beginner get up to speed. 'This elegantly written book will be a valuable resource for students looking for an entry-way to the vast and exciting topic of string theory. I highly recommend this book to all researchers interested in the beautiful field of string theory.' The lucid description is nicely complemented by very instructive problems. It is unique in that it is targeted for students without any knowledge of string theory and at the same time it includes the very latest developments of the field, all presented in a very fluid and simple form. 'This book is a magnificent resource for students and researchers alike in the rapidly evolving field of string theory. It is destined to become the standard textbook in the subject.' 'Masterfully written by pioneers of the subject, comprehensive, up-to-date and replete with illuminating problem sets and their solutions, String Theory and M-theory: A Modern Introduction provides an ideal preparation for research on the current forefront of the fundamental laws of nature. The clear pedagogical style and the many excellent exercises should provide the interested student or researcher a straightforward path to the frontiers of current research.'ĭavid Gross - Director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara and winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2004 'An exceptional introduction to string theory that contains a comprehensive treatment of all aspects of the theory, including recent developments. An excellent resource for graduate students as well as researchers in high-energy physics and cosmology.' ![]() It contains over 120 exercises with solutions, and over 200 homework problems with solutions available on a password protected website for lecturers at 'This is the first comprehensive textbook on string theory to also offer an up-to-date picture of the most important theoretical developments of the last decade, including the AdS/CFT correspondence and flux compactifications, which have played a crucial role in modern efforts to make contact with experiment. This book is ideal for graduate students and researchers in modern string theory, and will make an excellent textbook for a one-year course on string theory. ![]() It concludes with Matrix theory, the AdS/CFT duality and its generalizations. It then covers string geometry and flux compactifications, applications to cosmology and particle physics, black holes in string theory and M-theory, and the microscopic origin of black-hole entropy. It introduces the basics of perturbative string theory, world-sheet supersymmetry, space-time supersymmetry, conformal field theory and the heterotic string, before describing modern developments, including D-branes, string dualities and M-theory. This book guides the reader from the basics of string theory to recent developments. String theory is one of the most exciting and challenging areas of modern theoretical physics.
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