# What are strings made of?

by Herringbone
Tags: strings
 P: 12 At one time, I read where strings were vibrating bits of space-time. In "The Elegant Universe" TV program, they were described as vibrating bits of energy. In "The Elegant Universe" book they are described as consisting of fundemental "string stuff" and that questioning their composition really has no meaning. OK... so now I'm (even more) confused.
 P: 837 The book description is the closest to the truth. They are certainly not vibrating "bits of spacetime"; I don't even know what that would mean. They aren't "bits of energy", either; they have energy. Strings aren't made up of anything more fundamental; they are the fundamental building blocks --- everything is made up of them. Strings have a size and shape and a tension, and that's about it for classical physical properties (neglecting technicalities like conformal fields, Chan-Paton factors, etc.).
 P: 12 Yeah, "vibrating bits of spacetime or energy" never made sense to me either. The string's (incredibly huge) tension is an interesting property however. Tension in a classical string is created by the electromagnetic force. What is the force creating tension in a superstring? Is there another fundamental force? It seems that the vibration of a superstring would involve either the oscillation of this force or the oscillation of the Calabi-Yau space dimensions.
P: 837

 Tension in a classical string is created by the electromagnetic force. What is the force creating tension in a superstring?
There isn't any; tension is fundamental.

 Is there another fundamental force? It seems that the vibration of a superstring would involve either the oscillation of this force or the oscillation of the Calabi-Yau space dimensions.
The vibration of a string is pretty much just like the vibration of a classical string, postulating the "tension" as an elementary property of the string. String vibrations aren't due to any oscillation of space; they occur even in flat background spacetimes.
 P: 3,408 Strings could consist of probability space, rather than spacetime.
P: 1,308
 Originally posted by Herringbone The string's (incredibly huge) tension is an interesting property however. Tension in a classical string is created by the electromagnetic force. What is the force creating tension in a superstring? Is there another fundamental force? It seems that the vibration of a superstring would involve either the oscillation of this force or the oscillation of the Calabi-Yau space dimensions.
Tension is a force. Force is the gradient of a scalar potential field. Perhaps this is where the "background" potential comes in. Now, they suppose that the tension is constant along the string. But that seem more of a stipulation than a derivation.

diff EQ on strings, check out the math
 P: 51 Doesn't your definition of tension (with regard to strings) necessarily have to rely on the way in which the term is used? For example, tension can be looked at as coming from without or from within the thing... it can be a force applied or a force inherent, the act of movement or the condition of the already moved or moving... Or - and I think this is probably the closest to the norm where strings are concerned - it can be a measure of that which something already contains, i.e., condition of stretch, tautness, elongation, position, measure of vibration or even balance. And sometimes, it's only sematics... we all know what we're talking about; it's just getting that concept across to someone else, right?
P: 12
 Doesn't your definition of tension (with regard to strings) necessarily have to rely on the way in which the term is used?
The classical definition of tension that I'm thinking of is the internal force within something that act against a set of external forces working to pull the thing apart. For example it's the EM force providing tension in my guitar string that prevents it's breaking from the pulling force the guitar and I exert on it.

Which raises the question: can superstrings break under their tension and what happens if they do? The sound my guitar makes when I break a string isn't very musical.

 There isn't any; tension is fundamental.

This seems to be the key point. The string tension force would appear to be the fundamental force since it is from the actions of this force that gives rise to all the other forces.
P: 837
 Which raises the question: can superstrings break under their tension and what happens if they do?
Strings have have a uniform tension (perturbatively), but they can break.

 This seems to be the key point. The string tension force would appear to be the fundamental force since it is from the actions of this force that gives rise to all the other forces.
There isn't a "string tension force" in the sense that there is, say, an electromagnetic force: there is no force field permeating space. Tension is just one physical property of a string, like its length.
 P: 383 "String stuff"?? Shades of Sagan! Remember "star stuff" from Cosmos? "We are made of star stuff." So, I guess star stuff is made of string stuff. ------ Ed Witten at Santa Barbara in 1996 answered the question as follows: (an approximation) --- In our theory, all matter is explained in terms of strings. Without a better theory, it makes no sense to ask then what a string is. It will probably take another half century to understand the present theory in a sensible way. --- Here, you can listen to his whole talk and look at his overheads. UCSB KITP public lecture "Duality, Spacetime and Quantum Mechanics" ---> http://online.itp.ucsb.edu/online/plecture/witten/
P: 657
 Originally posted by Ambitwistor The book description is the closest to the truth. They are certainly not vibrating "bits of spacetime"; I don't even know what that would mean.
i m not quite sure how to interpret that statement either, but i sometimes say it too.

the reason is that i consider the geometry of spacetime to be a coherent state of gravitons. gravitons are stringy excitations, therefore spacetime is somehow a coherent state of string.

in this sense, i can think of a string as a bit of spacetime, no? i, like you, am not quite sure what to make of the statement. so this mean that spacetime is no longer a manifold? that certainly doesn t appear from the math.

what do you think?
 P: 51 Re: tension Since you can't experimentally 'pluck' strings, like you can a guitar string, you have to look at them indirectly. Swartz and Scherk used the postulated properties of a graviton and its messenger particle to calculate that the particle's transmitted force is inversely proportional to its string tension. So you have the direct relationship of 1/(2pa') where a' is alpha prime and is equal to the square of the string length scale. And since the graviton is so weak, the tension is enormous (actually the Planck tension or around 1039 tons...) And this huge tension means the string contracts to the Planck length (very very tiny...) Also, high tension means high energy string. So a string's energy is determined by two things: its vibration and its tension. So, if you have tension directly related to both length and vibration of a string, it becomes an inate part of the string's nature and not some outside 'input.' So maybe the analogy of a guitar string is inaccurate, since you have to pluck a guitar string to make it vibrate, as well as having to first string it up to give it the proper tension...
P: 12
 There isn't a "string tension force" in the sense that there is, say, an electromagnetic force: there is no force field permeating space.
The string tension “force” sort of reminds me of a pre-Einstein description of a force, which got me thinking.

My guitar string is essentially held together by the exchanges of photons between the atoms of the metal. If I were to cut one end of the string while it were under tension, the other end wouldn’t “know” it until a later time determined by the speed of light.

Since the tension in a superstring is fundamental and is not transmitted by a boson limited to the speed of light, when a string breaks is there a limitation as to how fast that information is transmitted across the entire string?
 P: 515 I see a rubber band (elastic) on my table. I am amazed about i's level of activity. Maybe it's due to the air pressure in Europe but it doesn't move or osccilates at all. The rubber band lays still. Like in a relaxed state. Now on the most basic Witten level this must be different? Amazing! It's almost like magic. Is it also different in the States?
 P: 837 If you postulate a relativistic string, which is what is done in string theory, then influences cannot propagate faster than c. In fact, effects on a string propagate at a speed $$v = \sqrt{\frac{\tau}{\mu}}$$ where τ is the tension and μ=m/L is the mass per unit length. But in string theory, the tension is equal to the energy per unit length, so $$\tau = E/L = mc^2/L = \mu c^2$$ and thus $$v = \sqrt{\frac{\mu c^2}{\mu}} = \sqrt{c^2} = c$$
P: 515
 Originally posted by Ambitwistor The book description is the closest to the truth. They are certainly not vibrating "bits of spacetime"; I don't even know what that would mean. They aren't "bits of energy", either; they have energy.
And how do they get energy? For a mobile phone?

 Originally posted by Ambitwistor Strings aren't made up of anything more fundamental; they are the fundamental building blocks --- everything is made up of them.
So they ARE?
That's it?
P: 657
 Originally posted by Herringbone The string's (incredibly huge) tension is an interesting property however. Tension in a classical string is created by the electromagnetic force. What is the force creating tension in a superstring?
the whole thing becomes a lot less mystifying if instead of calling it "tension", you call it mass per unit length.

a particle has mass (which labels its irrep of the Poincaré group), so the string (which is going to replace the particle) should have a mass too, and a mass per unit length.
P: 515
 Originally posted by lethe the whole thing becomes a lot less mystifying if instead of calling it "tension", you call it mass per unit length. a particle has mass (which labels its irrep of the Poincaré group), so the string should have a mass too, per unit length.
So - as Ambitwistor said - "strings aren't made up of anything more fundamental" there was mass from the beginning. Nice

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