Related papers: Beyond Space-Time
In this lecture we review some of the recent developments in string theory on an introductory and qualitative level. In particular we focus on S-T-U dualities of toroidally compactified ten-dimensional string theories and outline the…
The study of AdS/CFT (or gauge/gravity) duality has been one of the most active and illuminating areas of research in string theory over the past decade. The scope of its relevance and the insights it is providing seem to be ever expanding.…
There are theories which implement the idea that the constants of nature may be "time dependent." These introduce new fields representing "evolving constants," in addition to physical fields. We argue that dynamical matter coupling…
In these lectures we review the basic ideas of perturbative and non-perturbative string theory. On the non-perturbative side we give an introduction to D-branes and string duality. The elementary concepts of non-BPS branes and…
After reviewing briefly the classical examples of duality in four dimensional field theory we present a generalisation to arbitrary dimensions and to p-form fields. Then we explain how U-duality may become part of a larger non abelian…
This paper continues the development of a discrete space-time concept that is recently used in the explanation of the cosmological constant. Instead of order estimation, a more theoretical treatment of the theory is introduced. Based on the…
The mood at this conference is summarized in David Hughes' comment, ``this decade will be amazing.'' We've just had a pretty good ten years of advances in cosmology and extragalactic astronomy; why should we expect a repeat, another decade…
I discuss the recent progress in bypassing the KPZ barrier for the existence of nonperturbative bosonic strings in $1<d<25$. I consider string anomalies which emerge from higher terms of the DeWitt-Seeley expansion as $\varepsilon \times…
We review the status of low-scale string theories and large extra-dimensions. After an overview on different string realizations, we discuss some of the main important problems and we summarize present bounds on the size of possible…
I discuss several aspects of strings as unified theories. After recalling the difficulties of the simplest supersymmetric grand unification schemes I emphasize the distinct features of string unification. An important role in constraining…
Dimensional reduction has proven to be a surprisingly powerful tool for delineating the boundary between the string landscape and the swampland. Bounds from the Weak Gravity Conjecture and the Repulsive Force Conjecture, for instance, are…
The idea that spacetime has to be replaced by Clifford space (C-space) is explored. Quantum field theory (QFT) and string theory are generalized to C-space. It is shown how one can solve the cosmological constant problem and formulate…
In spite of the phenomenological successes of the inflationary universe scenario, the current realizations of inflation making use of scalar fields lead to serious conceptual problems which are reviewed in this lecture. String theory may…
We consider 2+1 dimensional gravity with a cosmological constant, and explore a duality that exists between space-times that have the De Sitter group SO(3,1) as its local isometry group. In particular, the Lorentzian theory with a positive…
It is shown by very simple arguments that the observed 3+1 dimensionality of spacetime may be understood on the basis of four fundamental principles of physics namely, Causality, General Covariance, Gauge Invariance and Renormalizability.…
We examine the two-dimensional spacetimes that emerge from string theory. We find all the solutions with no tachyons, and show that the only non-trivial solution is the black hole spacetime. We examine the role of duality in this picture.…
Aspects of string cosmology for critical and non-critical strings are discussed emphasizing the necessity to account for the dilaton dynamics for a proper incorporation of ``large - small" duality. This drastically modifies the intuition…
This is a chapter of the planned monograph "Out of Nowhere: The Emergence of Spacetime in Quantum Theories of Gravity", co-authored by Nick Huggett and Christian W\"uthrich and under contract with Oxford University Press. (More information…
We present here a note which synthesizes our previous ideas concerning some problems in cosmology, and the numerical correspondences between the physical constants that we could deduce.
A theory in which points, lines, areas and volumes are on on the same footing is investigated. All those geometric objects form a 16-dimensional manifold, called C-space, which generalizes spacetime. In such higher dimensional space…