The Duel: Strings versus Loops Physicists in search of the foundation of the world: how tiny objects can create matter, energy and even space and time ° and possibly countless other universes By Rüdiger Vaas ________________________________________________________________________ An icy wind blows over the flat farmland close to the small German village of Golm, which was incorporated into the city of Potsdam in 2003. Outside Golm, in the middle of open fields, starts a new world. A spooky world it seems. For there fluctuate mysterious superposition of fabrics whose threads are supposed to be everything, and between which there is supposed to be nothing. Strings vibrate in their highest tones, creating objects unknown to the surrounding people: photinos, gluinos, winos and zinos. But the familiar world is also a melody of strings. And it becomes stranger: allegedly, six or seven additional space dimensions exist curled up ° in formal terms, compactified ° like thin paper; higher-dimensional braneswhich flap like magic sheets in bizarrely formed Calabi-Yau spaces; moduli fields, mysterious anti-de Sitterspaces, a strange holographic principle which declares people to be holograms; unstable vacua, so that our universe could disappear with a whimper, and maybe even more universes than a person could possibly count ° not only if he had to dedicate his entire lifetime, but also if he had the whole age of the universe at his disposal. And all that, although these impressions would have surprised or disturbed a clueless hiker, belongs to the everyday business of a small but bustling group of researchers who met ° steadfastly ignoring the rain soaked days outside ° in the airily constructed building of the Max-Planck-Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert-Einstein-Institute, AEI). The atmosphere is cooperative but the occasion competitive. Although the conference theme sounds so conciliatory ° "Strings Meet Loops" ° it is debated keenly. At stake is literally everything: the universe and its foundation. Two well-developed theoretical approaches wrestle for a deeper basis of science. General relativity and quantum theory are the two undisputed pillars supporting the magnificent construction of contemporary physics, but on small space-time scales and at high energies they do not get along. For reconciliation, an even bolder theory is necessary. And on top of that this theory should ° physicists being allowed to be immodest sometimes ° unify the basic forces of nature and explain the riddles of the big bang and black holes. String theory and quantum geometry (also known as loop quantum gravity) are the names of the two competitors. They follow the goal in different fashions and with different results. Hundreds of most gifted physicists worldwide have joined this project ° and even invented new mathematical methods. For, in this unknown territory, there are no trails let alone a royal pathway. Thus the scientists have to fight their way through an exotic jungle ° without any guarantee that they would not be hopelessly lost. Nobody can show 1
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