A Musical String and a Joke

The credit for this one goes to Meredith:

Q: What would a pirate from Boston say?

A: (see below)

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There's a series of books being published that I like a lot. It's called the "Great Discovery Series" and is basically a collection of biographies about certain great discoveries in the history of science and the people who made them. The twist on that theme is that the authors of these books are often novelists by trade, so it makes for very good reading. Of course, in a series like this one of the books has to be about Einstein. I read it recently, and enjoyed it a lot. One of the things that the author talks about (in terms of modern developments in the search for a Theory of Everything) is strings and superstrings. These are multidimensional objects that obey a wave equation, just like electrons orbiting a nucleus, or sound being emitted from a speaker. Apparently one of the goals of string theory is to derive elementary particles from these strings in such a way that the different particles are strings vibrating at different frequencies and dimensions - or something like that (if one of my physicist friends reads this, they can set the record straight). :-} Under this scenario, the whole universe is a great symphony of vibrating strings combining in one great melody and harmony. It made me think of the medieval idea that the universe was singing and making music in praise of God. That's what we mean when we talk about "the music of the spheres" - the spheres in which the planets and stars were embedded were goverened by "Intelligences", angelic beings, who moved the spheres in circular (aka "harmonic") motion by their love toward and praise of God. Thus, the whole universe wall filled with beautiful music, if we could only hear it. And why can't we hear it? Because it's constantly going on in the background around us since before we are born, and our ears are very good at tuning out "background" sounds. Anyway, I thought it was a cool coming back around "full circle" (pardon pun), that now the major theory of elementary particles and gravitation is so "musical". We're back to a singing universe!

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Answer: "Aaaaahh!!!!"

;-)