String and Gravity Theory Musings

Reading Steinhardt and Turok's book 'Endless Universe' fundamentally on a theory of a cyclical Universe the string theory mathematical conjectures arise as an implicit aspect of their theory. From encountering Guth's inflaton theory in 1980 or so at a Harvard lecture to the same era introduction to string theory through a lecture by Witten the data to advance a post-inflation string theory of a cyclical universe was set up for a seemingly inevitable development.

At the least, after reading this book I have found a better appreciation of string theory and all those extra dimensions that rise to ten by the time one gets to M-Theory. I have an essentially different point of view on space-time than the string theorists and perhaps of cosmologists necessarily not being a scientist myself. Philosophically one may contemplate these things presented by the experts and form different ideas of the meta-criterion of the universe the physicists address.

Steinhardt's description of the six smaller dimensions as a way for strings to be wrapped up into other shapes is quite simple and useful. With basic strings forming the fundamental material that in different configurations appear as all of the other elementary particles including electrons we have a one substance sub-quantum theory of a kind. It is thought that in the highest temperature regime of the early universe when it was far less than a second old just a Higgs field existed. Of course we are not provided yet with an idea of what strings are themselves made of.
The mathematics of string theory are said to be brilliant, and the concept of investigating the ways in which quantum mechanics exist in potential configurations with extra dimensions is a necessary part of learning about the potential of reality.

The dimensions referred to in the mathematics of string theory are not given in the same way as the evident dimensions of space-time we experience as living beings. Instead the dimensions are mathematical constructions such as a multi-dimensional table or graph might have. With higher math constructions more complex shapes can be produced, and shapes that make it far easier to bridge the explanatory gaps of the quantum mechanical world and the larger world of solid state physics existing in three dimensions of space and one dimension of time (a total of four).
Though the mathematics is excellent for modeling constructions of hypothetical particle-wave constructions and relationships for-themselves, the essential philosophical assumptions of space-time may be wrong, and not by any means necessarily right.

What of space does not actually exist, but only mass and energy does exist? If mass and energy are all that exist with the appearances of space and dimensions experienced by human beings just an experience of an interpretation of the construction protocols of matter and energy it could be that the quantum mechanical models pursued with string theory would tend to be off quite a bit even if the numbers add up because of the nature of the problem.

Gravity for instance instead of being another manifestation of a concatenated string particle construction in some form could be just an apparent force created by quantum probability distribution en mass of quantum particle-waves. Galaxies might seem to drift apart with an expansion of space because of concatenated selections of quantum probability distribution making the odds tilt to the galaxy/house perhaps analogous to a small world’s network distribution.

The cyclical universe theory of reenergizing membranes leaves a lot unsaid of course--why anything should exist to start with, why it really isn't a perpetual motion machine (and what is wrong with that at the largest scale?-I haven't got the answer myself for non-thermodynamic existential universe initial endowments). We tend to like cyclical Wankel engines of explanation.

The initial chunk of mass that would allow a universe to form--it could be a membrane or two separate membranes, yet the idea of an initial chunk of mass like a tightly compact jewel with undifferentiated primordial substance that when converted to energy inflates or bangs things outward into a Universe with mass and energy, seems to be the main interest for investigation. Some theorists distribute the mass outward into a zillion zillion particles or strings that 'virtually' appear from the vacuum and later condense under statistical association and mutual attraction into a larger gravitationally-like influenced clump that eventually becomes the big chunk of stuff of which everything else is formed.

I personally like the idea of a membrane with zero dimensions (or two) that with the spoken word of God vibrates and resonates in the membrane releasing the mass into energy (let there be light) that after three days (actually three hundred thousand years) becomes photons streaming to eventually reach us red-shifted as the cosmic microwave background radiation several billion years later. The era of matter lasted from the issuance to light for near six billion years, and on the roll of the seventh billionth God rested and allowed 'dark energy to take over beginning the re-expansion of space, or as I might prefer, the alteration of whatever construction of mass-energy characteristics actually form the Universe.