Which shapes represent the fundamental structures in our universe? On this point, string theorists are currently clueless. For the world conjured into existence by M theory is so exotic that scientists are being forced to work not just at the frontier of physics but at the frontier of mathematics as well. Indeed, it may be that they lack some absolutely essential tool and will have to develop it, just as Isaac Newton was pushed by his investigations of the laws of motion to develop the calculus. As if that weren't hard enough, there is yet another major impediment to progress: unlike quantum mechanics, string theory and its offshoots have developed in the virtual absence of experimental evidence that could help steer theorists in productive directions.

Over the next decade, this situation could change. Hopes are running high that upcoming experiments at giant particle colliders in the U.S. and Europe will provide the first tantalizing glimpses of supersymmetry. More speculatively, these experiments could also detect the first subtle signs of additional dimensions.

What would Einstein have made of such wild imaginings? Columbia's Greene, for one, thinks he would have loved them. After all, Greene notes in his recently published book, "The Elegant Universe," Einstein played around with the idea of extra dimensions as a strategy for producing a unified field theory.

In fact, Greene believes a young Einstein, starting his professional career now rather than at the turn of the past century, would have overcome his deep distrust of quantum mechanics and enthusiastically embraced branes and sparticles and superstrings. And given his almost superhuman ability to transcend conventional thinking and visualize the world in unprecedented ways, he might have been the one to crack the ultimate theory. It may in the end take an Einstein to complete Einstein's unfinished intellectual symphony.

< < Previous  1 | 2 | 3

Feb. 18, 1929	July 1, 1946	Feb. 19, 1979
Larger Cover	Larger Cover	Larger Cover

		The Appeal By: John Grisham				A Thousand Splendid Suns By: Khaled Hosseini				7th Heaven (Women's Murder Club) By: James Patterson