What Do the Letters and Symbols in This String Theory Equation Represent?

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Homework Statement


In my class I am doing a report on the Super String Theory and I have not been able to find what the letters and symbols represent in this equation I attached. If someone understands what they mean please help me. Thanks

Homework Equations

The Attempt at a Solution

 

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Your image is too blurry. Can you check it and upload a better one?
 
Bobby Lounsbury said:

Homework Statement


In my class I am doing a report on the Super String Theory and I have not been able to find what the letters and symbols represent in this equation I attached. If someone understands what they mean please help me. Thanks

Homework Equations

The Attempt at a Solution


What kind of class is this for?

Where did you get the image of this equation?

Generally, there is a paper or some other article where the author lists the variables in the equations contained in the paper, along with a short description of what they mean.
 
SteamKing said:
What kind of class is this for?

Where did you get the image of this equation?

Generally, there is a paper or some other article where the author lists the variables in the equations contained in the paper, along with a short description of what they mean.

it is for my science class and I found it under Wikipedia's Super string theory in the mathematics sub heading, the first equation.
 
IF you look at the reference it comes from Polchinski's book on String Theory on page 173. To me that means that there is a lot of math that is glossed over to get to this equation.

It mentions that computes scattering amplitudes which is key concept of quantum mechanics so investigating that would help you understand the big picture of the equation and how its used in predicting what you would see in an experiment.

Wiki has an article on it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scattering_amplitude

A video talking about scattering:



This video talks about computing it although it may be over your head:

 
Last edited:
jedishrfu said:
IF you look at the reference it comes from Polchinski's book on String Theory on page 173. To me that means that there is a lot of math that is glossed over to get to this equation.

It mentions that computes scattering amplitudes which is key concept of quantum mechanics so investigating that would help you understand the big picture of the equation and how its used in predicting what you would see in an experiment.

Wiki has an article on it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scattering_amplitude

A video talking about scattering:



This video talks about computing it although it may be over your head:


Thank you so much!
 
To solve this, I first used the units to work out that a= m* a/m, i.e. t=z/λ. This would allow you to determine the time duration within an interval section by section and then add this to the previous ones to obtain the age of the respective layer. However, this would require a constant thickness per year for each interval. However, since this is most likely not the case, my next consideration was that the age must be the integral of a 1/λ(z) function, which I cannot model.
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