Welcome
Introduction
Links and Refs
Standard Model
Accelerators
Relativity
Nobel Prizes
String Theory
Unification
Extra dimensions
Sociology
Duality
Internet
Branes
Duality
Black holes
M-Theory
Reactions

The latest version of this site can be found at Beyond String Theory
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Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
    How to communicate string theory ?
  2. The Standard Model
    The theory of the elementary particles of nature, according to the Standard Model.
  3. General Relativity
    Space and time join and become curved in Einstein's geometrical theory of the gravitational force.
  4. String Theory
    The basic principles of string theory.
  5. Extra Dimensions
    Do we live in three, four or more dimensions ?
  6. Duality
    The equivalence of theories and what we learn from the relations between them.
  7. Branes
    Extended objects other than strings.
  8. Black Holes
    Are black holes really black ?
  9. M-Theory
    Beyond string theory. All string theories fit in one framework, but which ?
 

Intention

These are fragments of an introductory work in progress. My intention is to address the lay(wo)man interested in physics. In particular, I' ld like to explain aspects of String Theory in an elementary fashion, such that it becomes more comprehensible to those laymen that have some prior rudimentary knowledge of general mechanisms in physics. String theory is a theory that tries to give a unified framework to the whole of physics. It is one of the most beautiful and elaborate physical theories hitherto invented, and it is worth trying to convey it to a larger audience.

For now, I only assembled part of the standard skeleton of basic explanations of aspects of string theory, albeit worded in an original way. It is my intention to complement the explanations in words with more figures and with further explanations ..

   
 

Acknowledgement

Many thanks are due to other web sites on the internet from which I was able to borrow a lot of information and nice illustrations (see e.g. the section on Links and References). I would also like to acknowledge the many readers that have given me encouraging feedback and that have made me improve my site over the years. Thanks are also due to the colleagues who have shown appreciation for my enterprise -- it is nice to realize that peers appreciate this attempt to spread our technical knowledge. Many thanks go also to my hosts, the theoretical physics department of the Free University of Brussels who have done a great job in keeping my site up almost constantly over the last years.