{"id":148,"date":"2006-10-08T13:27:33","date_gmt":"2006-10-08T12:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/wordpress\/?p=148"},"modified":"2006-10-08T13:27:33","modified_gmt":"2006-10-08T12:27:33","slug":"is-string-theory-tying-us-in-knots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=148","title":{"rendered":"Is string theory tying us in knots?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Is it possible to combine the theory of relativity (which explains the movement of large bodies) with quantum mechanics (which explain the action of sub-atomic particles) into a Grand Unification Theory (GUT) that would account for everything from the big bang to black holes? Ever since the 1980s, the best bet for such a GUT was something called string theory.<br \/>\nNow, in <a href=\"http:\/\/observer.guardian.co.uk\/uk_news\/story\/0,,1890340,00.html\">this article<\/a>, the &#8220;Observer&#8221; newspaper&#8217;s science editor today explains remarkably clearly the problems with string theory and why it is becoming less popular among physicists.<br \/>\nIf this is something which interests you, you will know that the acclaimed scientist Stephen Hawking has now made three attempts to explain to a lay readership the concepts of theorectical physics that lie behind an understanding of the complete universe from unimaginably huge bodies like galaxies to unbelieveably small sub-atomic particles like quarks. First there was &#8220;A Brief History Of Time&#8221; in 1988; then there was &#8220;The Universe In A Nutshell&#8221;  in 2001; and  last year we had &#8220;A Briefer History Of Time&#8221;.(my review <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/science.html#BHT\">here<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is it possible to combine the theory of relativity (which explains the movement of large bodies) with quantum mechanics (which explain the action of sub-atomic particles) into a Grand Unification Theory (GUT) that would account for everything from the big bang to black holes? Ever since the 1980s, the best bet for such a GUT [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}