We watched a Nova PBS show the other night called The Elegant Universe. It's about the idea that the fundamental ingredients of nature might be these unbelievably tiny stings of energy. The interaction between energy strings underlie everything that ever happened or ever will, from our thoughts to the entire universe.
It could be the "theory of everything" that has eluded the great physicists so far. The brilliance of this theory unites the crazy small particle action in quantum mechanics with the laws of the large in general relativity science.
This energy string, if it exists, is a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter. To put that in perspective, if a tiny atom were magnified to the size of the solar system, a string would be the size of a tree. I need visual analogies because physics is way over my head, unless an apple happens to fall on it! But I like watching these brainy PBS programs.
We live in an amazing time of discoveries, but one mystery just opens the door to the next...
Speaking of smart, did you hear about the 12-year old British girl who achieved a perfect score on the Mensa test? That suggests she has a higher IQ than Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.
She convinced her parents to let her take the test, because she thought she might be clever. It made me happy listening to this delightful child. There is hope for the human race.
Here's the interview from CNN last week:
No comments:
Post a Comment