Untying the Knot

Human beings have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and an urgent drive for understanding. The further we go on our quest for absolute truth and the deeper we plunge into the heart of the ultimate reality, the more profound our questions become. Could there be something more to this world of ours than that which meets the eye? Is there some elaborate design behind the infinite galaxies, stars, and planets, or are we simply at the mercy of a chaotic and unordered universe? What is it that has given rise to the mysterious and unexplainable phenomenon that we have labeled the cosmos? Throughout history, we have attempted to answer these perplexing and ineluctable questions through myths, religion, or science. Apparent in many of these explanations is the idea of a unity, the “One”, or a single entity that comprises all of reality. To some, it is God’s presence. To others it is the Tao or simply “that which is, and, in the case of modern physics, it is infinitesimally small strings, oscillating and vibrating, like the strings of a violin, that comprise the fabric of our universe and “rhythmically beat out the laws of the cosmos” (18).
String theory is a revolutionary way of explaining the complexity of the cosmos. It is the unified theory of physics that Einstein searched for but never found. It forces us to look at the world in which we live in a drastically different and beautiful way. String theory states that all aspects of our universe consist of infinitesimally small, vibrating loops of energy (14). Like Pythagoras’ idea of the “music of the spheres”, these universal strings vibrate and oscillate, producing different notes in a cosmic symphony. Strings are the most basic constituents of matter, “atoms” in the true sense of the word. According to physicists, string theory may hold the key to understanding the inner workings of the universe. As Brian Greene states in his book The Elegant Universe:
String theory has the potential to show that all of the wondrous happenings in the universe--from the frantic dance of subatomic quarks to the stately waltz of orbiting binary stars, from the primordial fireball of the big bang to the majestic swirl of heavenly galaxies--are reflections of one grand physical principle, one master equation (5).
String theory is the first theory able to combine the undeniable, yet conflicting truths of Einstein’s general theory of relativity and the newly emerging field of quantum mechanics.