loose ends on a string

aimee and i had our nerd night. tara came over for a bit but then she had to go pick up meg from work. basically we finished "brian greene's the elegant universe" that took three hours and concluded that the elegant universe would be much more elegant if brian greene weren't in it.

string theory is definitely interesting, but after that and sharma's last lecture today, i'm now back to square one. no, not even, square zero.
i still cant decide whether i wanna do experimental or theoretical physics. based on 2cl lab last quarter, i told myself that i shall avoid experimental as much as i can because labs are horrible, but then i realized that it's just because 2cl lab is stupid and pointless. 2dl lab this quarter is way much better; i'm actually learning something from the lab, and i actually look forward into going to lab. so i guess i don't quite mind experimental anymore. sharma showed us a bit of what he's doing at CERN and SLAC and those were so damn cool; made me feel like i wanna go to experimental. but then there's theoretical. i think it's cool to theoretize stuff, but it seems like i wouldn't get a grasp of how theoretical physics would feel like since the theorists here want students to have prior knowledge of bunch of stuff before doing 199 with them. that means i won't get to know how theoretizing actually feels like until senior year, or graduate school, and by that time it would be too late. however, the string theory dvd today that i spent three hours watching was great. i understand more of what string theory actually is. not yet the horrendous mathematical part of it, but at least physically i know what it is and it's really interesting. the math part will be covered by dr. brian wecht next week.

so i'm either gonna be spending the rest of my life hunting particles, or doing math to unify general relativity with electroweak force and strong force.

i can't get this thing off my mind, so before i go crazy due to 40 hours without sleep, let me spit it out. M-THEORY string theory is so far the only most consistent theory that unifies all 4 forces that makes up the universe, but it's only consistent in 11 dimensions. however, brian's thesis defense yesterday proposes that using monodrofolds that he and his colleague invented, they managed to bring the 10 dimensional string theory into 4 dimensions and still have it consistent. i don't know how much this monodrofolds can handle the 11 dimensions, but brian was quite sure yesterday that this monodrofolds can also make the M-THEORY be consistent in 4 dimensions. but that's not the point. regardless of how they bring these theories down so that they'll be consistent in our four-dimensional world, what gets me thinking is the idea that we're made of ENERGY. pure energy in form of a string that vibrates randomly; and the frequency and shape of the vibration determines what particle it forms.

i don't know about you, but i think that is the craziest idea that i would agree on.

i have been thinking to myself a couple of times. this whole physics thing seems like a path to bring us closer to god. to understand how god created something out of nothing. and that gets me wondering again, is this wrong? is it wrong to be curious about what makes the universe? is it wrong to seek knowledge that only god himself possess? i don't remember where but i remember reading something about god being a pure energy, that god has no form, but god is simply pure energy. if that is true, and this whole string theory is also true, then everything makes sense and consistent, for god said that he created us human from his own image. if god is pure energy, then of course we are of his image, because string theory says that particles in our body is made by strings of pure energy. and it's again consistent in the end, because when you die, your soul leaves you to go to heaven, or hell, or purgatory, but whatever happens, you "return" to your creator, which is god. and that totally makes sense, because in a sense it's like your body disintegrate into strings of energy that joins a bigger collection of pure energy.

science and religion. interesting. that reminds me of this book by dan brown: angels and demons. if you have time, read it; it has excellent insights on religion and science.

monty informed me that a hen can be useful in some way.

5 cups of coffee and 40 hours without sleep. i can still function, except when i saw programming homework for this week and decided within 2 seconds that it's not worth the thinking so i just skipped it.

grinstein finally replied my email. i'll be seeing him this wednesday. hope i get to do 199 with him. if all else fails then i'll try branson. too bad sharma's going to be in europe a lot next fall. =(

people who have seen ai-chan's picture said she's really pretty, or she's cute, or both. i guess i'm very blessed to be with someone lovely in both the outside and inside. =)