Vibrating strings and string theory

[math_04]

The fundamental part of string theory is that particles are in fact made up of vibrating strings. So this means that the lowest form of unit is a vibrating string?

It goes like this

Human - made up of atoms - atoms made up of subatoms (electrons, protons and neutrons)- quarks. And then come the other smaller units until we finally arrive at a vibrating string. Am I right?

 

[chris_183]

it's like how nucleons (protons etc) don't exist themselves, it's the up & down quarks that exist. in the same way the subatomic particles aren't themselves structures which are then composed of strings. instead the notion of a subatomic particle is replaced by that of a vibrating string.
sorry that was a long way of saying it.
make sense? :-]

 

[humanino]

make sense? :-]

To me it's not really wrong but awkward. You can not say a fruit salad is made of fruit so there is no salad. The concept of salad is relevant by itself. The concept of nucleon is relevant although it is true that nucleons are made up of quarks. The concept of molecule is relevant although it is made up of atom. I can continue for a long list At every scale there is an interesting structure which deserves its own study, and saying "it does not exist" must be taken with this grain of salt.

 

[DaveC426913]

The fundamental part of string theory is that particles are in fact made up of vibrating strings. So this means that the lowest form of unit is a vibrating string?

It goes like this

Human - made up of atoms - atoms made up of subatoms (electrons, protons and neutrons)- quarks. And then come the other smaller units until we finally arrive at a vibrating string. Am I right?

Yes. That is the basic idea.

The vibrations of the string manifest in the form of properties such as charge and mass.