Related papers: On the universality of string theory
Quantum theory was discovered in an adventurous way, under the urge to solve puzzles-like the spectrum of the blackbody radiation-that haunted the physics community at the beginning of the 20th century. It soon became clear, though, that…
The debate between loop quantum gravity and string theory is sometimes lively, and it is hard to present an impartial view on the issue. Leaving any attempt to impartiality aside, I report here, instead, a conversation on this issue,…
In addition to being a prime candidate for a fundamental unified theory of all interactions in nature, string theory provides a natural setting to understand gauge field theories. This is linked to the concept of "D-branes": extended,…
In this article the quantum fluctuation of a rigid and static string is reported to be identical to a free quantum particle. Solutions similar to this static string have already been found in the semi-classical quantizaton of pulsating…
String Quantum Gravity is motivated and introduced. Advances in the study of the classical and quantum string dynamics in curved spacetime are reported: 1-New Classes of Exact Multistring solutions in curved spacetimes. 2-Mass spectrum of…
Recent developments in string theory suggest that string theory landscape of vacua is vast. It is natural to ask if this landscape is as vast as allowed by consistent-looking effective field theories. We use universality ideas from string…
The foundations of quantum mechanics have been plagued by controversy throughout the 85 year history of the field. It is argued that lack of clarity in the formulation of basic philosophical questions leads to unnecessary obscurity and…
We review the current observational status of string cosmology when confronted with experimental datasets. We begin by defining common observational parameters and discuss how they are determined for a given model. Then we review the…
We comment on the relation between string theory and empirical science, grounding our discussion in cosmology, a subject with increasingly precise data in which this connection operates at several levels. It is important to take into…
We consider string theory in a time dependent orbifold with a null singularity. The singularity separates a contracting universe from an expanding universe, thus constituting a big crunch followed by a big bang. We quantize the theory both…
I review work developing the idea that string is a composite of point-like entities called string bits. Old and new insights this picture brings into the nature of string theory are discussed. This paper summarizes my talk presented to the…
The first part is an introduction to conformal field theory and string perturbation theory. The second part deals with the search for a deeper answer to the question posed in the title. Contents: 1. Conformal Field Theory 2. String Theory…
We review a bit our earlier novel string field theory\cite{self2,self8} stressing the interesting property, that it becomes expressed in terms of particle like objects called by us "objects" which in our formalism do not at all develop in…
One of the perspectives in modern quantum field and string theory is related with the attempts to go beyond the perturbation theory. It turns out that a key principle in the formulation of all known non-perturbative results is {\it…
Quantum field theory offers physicists a tremendously wide range of application; it is both a language with which a vast variety of physical processes can be discussed and also it provides a model for fundamental physics, the so-called…
In this talk we discuss the cosmic singularity. We motivate the need to correct general relativity in the study of singularities, and mention the kind of corrections provided by string theory. We review how string theory resolves time-like…
After a review of some topics concerning the phenomenological applications of perturbative string theory, I discuss to what extent all of it is affected by the recent developements in string dualities.
We argue that string theory emerges inevitably from a few simple assumptions about physical scattering. Consistency alone requires that all tree-level four-point scattering amplitudes exhibit vanishing residues at prescribed values of the…
Quantum Mechanics, almost 80 years after its arrival, is a well established and experimentally not falsified theory. It has predicted and explained a whole series of natural phenomena of a very delicate nature. But its interpretation has…
Quantum theory can be understood as pointing to an ontology of relations. I observe that this reading of quantum mechanics is supported by the ubiquity of relationality in contemporary fundamental physics, including in classical mechanics,…