Introduction

1984 marked not the totalitarian rule of Big Brother but an unprecedented discovery in modern physics. Unlike relativity, which described the giants of the macro world, or quantum mechanics, which described the antics of unimaginably tiny particles, the theory of superstrings sought to describe it all. It has managed to do what supersymmetry, gauge field theory, and supergravity had never been able to do by themselves. There is also now hope that the various versions of superstring theory that have cropped up are simply different ways of looking at the same thing. Despite this, it is still the one of the most untested and controversial theories in physics today.

To navigate this project, click on the headings on your immediate right. "The Conflict" describes the basic ideas behind both quantum mechanics and relativity and why they are mutually incompatible. "Past Endeavors" is a run-through of the symmetry theories before the conception of superstrings. This section is important because superstring incorporates many of their insights. "Strings Attached" is about the theory of superstrings and how it describes nature. "(Strings)²" includes M-Theory and multi-dimensioned objects.

This website is coded with XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS. It is designed for Internet Explorer 5.5+, 800x600 or larger (preferably larger). If you use Netscape, Opera, or one of the lower forms of IE, I believe the only difference is that you will not see the nifty-colored scrollbars.

VSF 2004 Project Information

Grade	11 (Group 10-12)
Team Size	1
Subject	Physics/Astronomy
Project Type	Descriptive Type II
Project Level	Advanced
Project Format	Traditional
Software	AceHTML 5 Internet Explorer Photoshop 6.5 Macromedia Flash MX Microsoft Word Hot Potatoes vs. 5.5
Hardware	Lexmark Z42 Printer Pentium IV PC Canon Powershot A20 (Dig. Camera) Scanner
Source of Idea	Having a penchant for the esoteric, my friend Adam Tasca started reading A Brief History of Time, which started me on Timothy Ferris' The Whole Shebang. Since it's only a short leap from cosmology to particle physics and unification theories, one thing led to another, and I ended up scaling the entire bibliography (see below).
Special Skills	Re-learn HTML, learn XHTML 1.0 Tweaking with Photoshop 6.5 Flash MX CSS styling
Awards Won	Superstrings has won me 1^st in Physical Sciences in the Ottawa Regional Science Fair (and an additional Physics special award), and I'm entering my ORSF project and this website in the Canada Wide on May 15^th.

Bibliography

Alizadeh, Javad 4D Cartoons (Page 4). 9 May 2004.
[http://www.javad.8m.com/photo4.html].
Barbato, Joe, et. al. Using Modern Language Association (MLA) Format. Feb 2003. Purdue University.12 April 2004.
[http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_mla.html]
Grand Unification. 17 Mar 2004. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 22 Mar 2004.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_unification].
Greene, Brian, R. The Elegant Universe. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1999.
Hawking, Stephen. The Universe in a Nutshell. New York: Bantam Books, 2001.
Lexikon der Astrophysik. May 2004. Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Konigstuhl. 9 May 2004.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersymmetry].
Lindley, David. The End of Physics. New York: BasicBooks, 1993.
Looking For Extra Dimensions. The Official String Theory Website. 29 Feb 2004.
[http://superstringtheory.com/experm/exper5.html].
List of Particles 4 May 2004. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 9 May 2004.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_particles].
M-theory (simplified). 24 March 2004. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 30 Mar 2004.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory]
Peat, F. David. Superstrings and the Search for the Theory of Everything. Chicago, Illinois: Contemporary Books, Inc., 1988.
Pence, James H. How to Do Everything with HTML and XHTML. Emeryville, California: McGraw-Hill/Osborne.
Scrollbar Colors Customization. 2004. DynamicDrive.com. 11 April 2004.
[http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex11/barcolor.htm]
Standard Model. The Official String Theory Website. 29 Feb 2004.
[http://superstringtheory.com/experm/exper2.html].
Supergravity. 2 May 2004. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 9 May 2004.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supergravity].
Supersymmetry. 2 March 2004. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 15 Mar 2004.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersymmetry].
W3C MarkUp Validation Service. The 1 Dec 2002. World Wide Web Consortium. 11 April 2004.
[http://validator.w3.org/]

VSF

This site is a submission to the Canada Wide Virtual Science Fair

Project Info