Stranger Than You Can Imagine: Relativity, Quantum & String Theories

A three-part series with Jeff Rodgers

 

 

I don’t blame you for being a bit befuddled by physics.

On the one hand, we have Einstein’s Relativity. This does a bang up job describing the BIG universe, but requires us to live in a universe where space and time get all squished and stretched.

On the other, we have Quantum Mechanics. Here we learn how things work in the SMALL universe, but we also learn that the small universe follows none of the rules of the big universe.

And here’s the kicker - when you put them together to get an idea of how the universe works as a whole you get... complete and utter nonsense. Well, that can’t be right, can it? Why should the universe have one set of laws governing big stuff and another governing small stuff?

Enter String Theory, which might just be a Theory of Everything, putting our heads right about the universe. But if it is correct, your universe is even stranger than you can imagine.

 

Join Jeff Rodgers for a three part discussion on the physics of your universe:

 February 10, 7-9 pm

The Relativity Café.  OK, you’ve had almost 100 years to absorb the lessons of Special and General Relativity. Time is not absolute. Neither is space. Depending upon our frames of reference, you and I will describe objects and events differently, but we’ll both be correct. How are we to make sense of the universe in this (these) context (contexts)? You might need a drink for this one…

March 10, 7-9 pm

The Quantum Café. Electrons don’t “exist” until you observe them. Cats are dead and alive at the same time. The underpinnings of our universe are based on probabilities, and we can’t ever know exactly what’s going on when we try to observe the subatomic universe. Trust me, you are definitely going to need a drink for this one…

 

April 14, 7-9 pm

The String Café. I hate to say it, but in order to make Relativity and Quantum Mechanics play nicely with each other, things must get stranger still. Is everything made up of exceedingly tiny vibrating strings? Are some of those strings stretched out into ‘branes?  Are we, in fact, living in an 11 dimensional universe called “the Bulk”? I think that I may need a drink for this one…