What is the true nature of the universe?

To answer this question, humans come up with stories to describe the world.
We test our stories and learn what to keep and what to throw away. But the more we learn, the more complicated and
weird our stories become. Some of them so much so, that it's really hard to know what they're actually about. Like
string theory. A famous, controversial and often misunderstood story, about the nature of everything. Why did we
come up with it and is it correct? Or just an idea we should chuck out? To understand the true nature of reality, we
looked at things up close and were amazed. Wonderous landscapes in the dust, zoos of bizarre creatures, complex
protein robots. All of them made from structures of molecules made up of countless even smaller things: Atoms. We
thought they were the final layer of reality, until we smashed them together really hard and discovered things that
can't be divided anymore: Elementary particles. But now, we had a problem: They are so small that we could no
longer look at them. Think about it: what is seeing? To see something, we need light, an electromagnetic wave. This
wave hits the surface of the thing and gets reflected back from it into your eye. The wave carries information from the
object that your brain uses to create an image. So you can't see something without somehow interacting with it. Seeing
is touching, an active process, not a passive one. This is not a problem with most things. But particles are But particles
are very, But particles are very, very, But particles are very, very, very small. So small that the electromagnetic waves
we used to see are too big to touch them. Visible light just passes over them. We can try to solve this by creating
electromagnetic waves with more and much smaller wavelengths. But more wavelengths, means more energy. So,
when we touch a particle with a wave that has a lot of energy it alters it. By looking at a particle, we change it. So, we
can't measure elementary particles precisely. This fact is so important that it has a name: The Heisenberg uncertainty
principle. The basis of all quantum physics. So, what does a particle look like then? What is its nature? We don't
know. If we look really hard, we can see a blurry sphere of influence, but not the particles themselves. We just know
they exist. But if that's the case, how can we do any science with them? We did what humans do and invented a new
story: A mathematical fiction. The story of the point particle. We decided that we would pretend that a particle is a
point in space. Any electron is a point with a certain electric charge and a certain mass. All indistinguishable from
each other. This way physicists could define them and calculate all of their interactions. This is called Quantum Field
Theory, and solved a lot of problems. All of the standard model of particle physics is built on it and it predicts lots of
things very well. Some quantum properties of the electron for example have been tested and are accurate up to 0, 0,00
0,0000 0,000000 0,00000000 0,0000000000 0,000000000000 0,0000000000002 %. So, while particles are not really
points, by treating them as if they were, we get a pretty good picture of the universe. Not only did this idea advance
science, it also led to a lot of real-world technology we use everyday. But there's a huge problem: Gravity. In quantum
mechanics, all physical forces are carried by certain particles. But according to Einstein's general relativity, gravity is
not a force like the others in the universe. If the universe is a play, particles are the actors, but gravity is the stage. To
put it simply, gravity is a theory of geometry. The geometry of space-time itself. Of distances, which we need to
describe with absolute precision. But since there is no way to precisely measure things in the quantum world, our
story of gravity doesn't work with our story of quantum physics. When physicists tried to add gravity to the story by
inventing a new particle, their mathematics broke down and this is a big problem. If we could marry gravity to
quantum physics and the standard model, we would have the theory of everything. So, very smart people came up
with a new story. They asked: What is more complex than a point? A line- A line or a string. String theory was born.
What makes string theory so elegant, is that it describes many different elementary particles as different modes of
vibration of the string. Just like a violin string vibrating differently can give you a lot of different notes, a string can
give you different particles Most importantly, this includes gravity. String theory promised to unify all fundamental
forces of the universe. This caused enormous excitement and hype. String theory quickly graduated to a possible
theory of everything Unfortunately, string theory comes with a lot of strings attached. Much of the maths involving a
consistent string theory does not work in our universe with its three spatial and one temporal dimensions. String
theory requires ten dimensions to work out. So, string theorists did calculations in model universes. And then try to
get rid of the six additional dimensions and describe our own universe But so far, nobody has succeeded and no
prediction of string theory has been proven in an experiment So, string theory did not reveal the nature of our
universe. One could argue that in this case string theory really isn't useful at all. Science is all about experiments and
predictions. If we can't do those, why should we bother with strings? It really is all about how we use it. Physics is
based on maths. Two plus two makes four. This is true no matter how you feel about it. And the maths in string theory
does work out. That's why string theory is still useful. Imagine that you want to build a cruise ship, but you only have
blueprints for a small rowing boat. There are plenty of differences: the engine, the engine, the materials, the engine,
the materials, the scale. But both things are fundamentally the same: Things that float. So, by studying the rowing boat
blueprints, you might still learn something about how to build a cruise ship eventually. With string theory, we can try
to answer some questions about quantum gravity that have been puzzling physicists for decades. Such as how black
holes work or the information paradox. String theory may point us in the right direction. When used in this spirit,
string theory becomes a precious tool for theoretical physicists and help them discover new aspects of the quantum
world and some beautiful mathematics. So, maybe the story of string theory is not the theory of everything. But just
like the story of the point particle, it may be an extremely useful story. We don't yet know what the true nature of
reality is but we'll keep coming up with stories to try and find out. Until one day, Until one day, hopefully Until one
day, hopefully, we do know. This video was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and realized with
the scientific advice of Alessandro Sfondrini.

Brief idea on String theory Brian Greene

Imagine I have a beautiful tree that's filled with oranges and I asked myself What is the orange made of how do I
answer that question? Well, I want to look deeply inside the orange. So I Magnify it and I magnify it again and if I
keep on doing it deep inside sooner or later I begin to see molecules come into view but molecules are not the end of
the story because the molecules I can enlarge them and if I make them big enough deep inside, I begin to see Atoms
atoms are not the end of the story too because we have electrons Zooming around the nucleus deep inside mostly
empty space in the atom, but deep inside We see the nucleus. So if I grab that and magnify it I see that the nucleus is
itself made of particles neutrons and protons and if I grab one of the neutrons and magnify it I find yet further particles
little tiny quarks inside Now that is where the conventional idea stopped String theory comes along and suggests that
inside these particles there is something else So if I take a little quark and I magnify it conventional idea says there's
nothing inside but string theory says I'll find a little tiny filament a little filament of energy a little string like filament
and just like the string on a Violin, I pluck it and it vibrates Creates a little musical note that I can hear the little strings
in string theory when they vibrate They don't produce musical notes. They produce the particles themselves so what
quark is nothing but a string vibrating in one pattern an electron is nothing but a string vibrating in a different pattern a
neutrino Nothing but a string vibrating and different patterns still so if I take all of this back together I have my
ordinary orange and if these ideas are right, they are speculative But if they are right deep inside the orange or any
other piece of matter There's nothing but a dancing vibrating cosmic symphony of strings That's the basic idea of
string theory