Is String Theory a Paradigm Violation?

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I had been trying to understand how, you know, Clucy Klein theory, of course, which Einstein was his, spent the last half of his life on trying to unify the forces using extra dimensions. And so, and green and shorts, it didn't, didn't put geometry in. It was all scattering of gravitons with other particles. So we, we put the geometry back in and we found as you just alluded to, we found that if you look very carefully at the equations of string theory there are ways to get rid of the 10 dimensions and get down to four. I haven't seen anything else like that in my career.

Quantum gravity research is inspired by experiment — all of the experimental data that supports quantum mechanics, and supports general relativity — but it’s only inspiration, not detailed guidance. So it’s easy to “do research on quantum gravity” and get lost in a world of toy models and mathematical abstraction. Today’s guest, Andrew Strominger, is a leading researcher in string theory and quantum gravity, and one who has always kept his eyes on the prize: connecting to the real world. We talk about the development of string theory, the puzzle of a positive cosmological constant, and how black holes and string theory can teach us about each other.

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Andrew Strominger received his Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently the Gwill E. York Professor of Physics at Harvard University. Among his awards are the Dirac Medal, the Klein Medal, the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

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