Re: Superstring Theory Explanation

John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:54:51 -0500

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Natasha Vita-More <natasha@natasha.cc> Wrote:

>I need an explanation from someone(s) on the lists of superstring theory;
>why 11 dimensions rather than 12, and also membrane theory.

I don't know, last I heard 10 dimensions were sufficient but things are changing so fast it's hard to keep up. The gravitational field at a point can not be expressed with a single number, you need 10 numbers (dimensions) for each point. For this reason the gravitational field must be a tensor field. The number 10 comes up because there are 10 and only 10 ways time and the three dimensions of space can be expressed in pairs. I don't know why you'd need 11 dimensions.

John K Clark jonkc@att.net

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