On the New Scientist story at
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19325954.200-the-universe-is-a-stringnet-liquid.html
Levin and Wen claim that photons and electrons are made of strings.

Wen even says on his homepage http://dao.mit.edu/~wen/:
"Light is a fluctuation of closed strings of arbitrary sizes."

How can one deduce Maxwell's equations from this idea?
Is there any approach in this direction in the literature?

Frank


======================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT:
The question is how one can deduce this idea from Maxwell's equation? ;-)

oh no

Thus spake frank_k_sheldon@yahoo.co.uk


As far as I know, one cannot deduce any physical consequences from
string theory. It comes from generalising qed in what it's proponents
believe is the only way possible, in the hope of fixing the Landau pole
and finding a unification with gravity. The argument is, as far as I can
gather, that since nothing else works, string theory must. But it comes
from taking an approach to quantum field theory which itself contains a
lot of unjustifiable assumptions, and I think it much more productive to
study the assumptions at the root of scientific theory in order to
ascertain what is strictly valid and what is not.

Regards

--
Charles Francis
moderator sci.physics.foundations.
substitute charles for NotI to email

harry

I had a look at the (too short) article, apparently it is very much
fundamental and it even *does* make predictions that already have been
confirmed. My impression is that this is *not* the String Theory that you
refer to. A search with Google seems to confirm that:

http://dao.mit.edu/~wen/pub/intr-frmb.pdf

Perhaps this will be called String-Net theory? Regards, Harald

Well said.

Eugene.

fredifizzx

Correct. This is not orthodox superstring theory. It is more in the
vein of what I talk about with the quantum "vacuum" having order but
different geometry. I sent Wen an email last year asking if our
hexagonal "Spin Matrix" geometry might work better for his ideas but
never got a reply.

Best,

Fred Diether

fredifizzx

Fermions are the "ends" of their string-net strings.


Basically the same way Maxwell did it with his mechanical model of the
ether. ;-)

http://www.vacuum-physics.com/Maxwell/maxwell_oplf.pdf

Wen is just doing a relativistic medium for the quantum "vacuum". I
would expect the organization would be more brane-like "cells" than
string-like. But one should be able to do a static-like model using a
stringy concept.

Best,

Fred Diether

oops, i forgot to say that wen is not a string theorist. his theory
is completely different, and is called "string net condensation".
he has many pictures on his web page, an he really thinks that photons
are one piece of closed string. (the end of an open
string is an electron or positron.) For example, everything
in his theory takes place in 3 spatial dimensions.

So the question is: if a photon is a closed string, how does one
deduce maxwell's equations? Is this possible at all?

Frank

ken s. tucker

Hi Fred and all,


A question arises
from the storage of electrical potential energy
in the basic equation, energy p = ab/r, where
"a" and "b" are fundamental charges.

The charges "a" and "b" exist relatively, that is
by a "relationship", to be clear, neither charge
has an absolute existance.

Suppose every charge in the universe is related
to every other charge and we call those relations
"strings", that spans the distance "r", I think that's
important because theoreticians sofar are unable
to describe how that relation between "a" and "b"
works, that is comfortable to them.

The closer the charges, the fatter the strings,
meaning a shorter relating wavelength.

Some suggest the "strings" are virtual particles.

I intend to keep an open mind on string theory
because it deals with relations, (where the "r"
is the string).

Let's depart from the argument above to consider
"relative speed", an Object A and Object B are
moving relativity, and since A or B has no absolute
motion, the motion is a relationship, or IOW's a
string relating A & B, it's a semantic.

It's the relation aka the string that's physically
important, by relativity.

Perhaps, a "string theory" with better definition,
may be an improvement?
Ken

peter

eugene_stefanovich@usa.net writes:

Yes

Peter