The Elegant Universe

Sometimes the internet leads you to weird places. Last weekend I was taking a short break from dissertation writing when I found a video that explained the tenth dimension. Intrigued, I googled for more information, and my searching led me to Nova, one of my favorite programs. Now, I usually willfully ignore science and math. I like Nova for the adventure programs. They've done several programs each on Everest and Denali. But this Nova program was different. First of all, it was long--three hours. Secondly, it was on physics. Physics?? I dumped science in high school before I got to physics, and I never felt even the smallest pang of regret. And now, ten years later, I'm watching a program on physics.

Anyway, the program was called The Elegant Universe. Starting way back with Isaac Newton, it detailed the search for a "theory of everything," which naturally led to eleven dimensions, complete with parallel universes and time travel. This theory of everything is called "string theory," or "M-theory," the M standing for many things, one of which being "meaningless."

It was confusing, since, as I've noted, I ran screaming from science and math when I was 17. It boggles my mind a little bit that someone can do a bunch of math and come to the conclusion that "Ah! This means there are jillions of parallel universes, all just a hop, skip, and a dimension away!" But it was strangely fascinating. The program originated from a book with the same title, which I've checked out from the library. Either I'll read it, become obsessed, and decide that I need to become a string theorist, or forget about it after one chapter and never read another page about string theory again. Jay is probably banking on the latter, as I don't think he's prepared to support me through another 11 years of college.

Here is the program, all of it viewable in 6-8 minute chunks, perfect for a little break after writing a page of a dissertation. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/

And here is someone else who also enjoys string: