String Theory: What Is It and Why Are We Interested in It?
Date:
String theory is an area of theoretical physics that routinely receives wide media attention. However, many of the popular science explanations are based on misconceptions or misnomers, such as "general relativity is incompatible with quantum mechanics". Moreover, despite the media attention there is little public understanding of why theoretical physicists are interested in string theory, or how it developed. In this talk, I give a lightning-fast introduction to theoretical physics and some of the problems it tackles. Afterwards, I focus on the problem of quantum gravity and why it is important. I continue with a brief history of string theory, introduce some of its basic concepts, and explain how it addresses the quantum gravity. Finally, I describe some of the pros and cons of string theory and why it’s currently not a very popular subject in the theoretical physics community.