[Nesti (Mark)]

May I add two quotes which may throw the cat among the pigeons at this point.

1. A quote from H.A. Lorentz 1919 paper called ‘The Einstein Theory of Relativity’,
“Till now it was believed that time and space existed by themselves, even if there was nothing else – no Sun, no Earth, no Stars – while now we know that time and space are not the vessel for the universe, but could not exist at all if there were no contents, namely, no Sun, Earth and other Celestial bodies”

2. A quote from Einstein, “Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. Physical objects are not in space but these objects are spatially extended. In this way the concept ‘empty space’ loses its meaning. ... Since the theory of general relativity implies the representation of physical reality by a continuous field, the concept of particles or material points cannot play a fundamental part ... and can only appear as a limited region in space where the field strength / energy density are particularly high.”

In these two quotes, you may see that it becomes impossible to define material/energy without defining the field (gravitation, electromagnetic, whatever!). Conversely, it is equally impossible to define any field without defining the material/energy.

SO, the big issue here is that a general (universal) definition would need to be found - one which describes both the field and the constituents at the same time - before any TRUE understanding of what stuff is could ever be asked. Our TOE perhaps.

Interesting to see that Einstein didn’t really believe in space and/or time, in that he talked about objects being spatially and temporally separated. This probably leads straight back to his assertion of synchronicity being the primary hand rail for understanding.

So in the context of this thread, asking what Strings are becomes as meaningless as asking what space and time are…

This is exactly why I prefer to look at events/laws/energy etc as ‘associations’ which form and die-off between particles and how these ‘associations’ affect fields…the electromagnetic field, gravitational field, whatever! Looking at association between one particle and another, between one field and another, or many particles in many fields (strings operating within 11 dimensions for instance, or perhaps just 4 in our spacetime brane) it is much simpler to get a picture that energy, matter and fields may be shared and are connected with each other.

This means that one photon moving within a field can and does affect another photon moving in the same field, or perhaps another field, IF an association between the two exists.

An association simply being a link (related frequencies within string particles perhaps) between as Einstein put it, one “energy density” and another “energy density”. With this in mind, it should be easy to believe in say isospin and 'spooky action at a distance', the outcomes and strange behavior in Young's double slit experiment, quantum tunneling, and even probability itself may somehow be related to regions of varying strengths of "field densities" and the associations, the shared string frequencies operating within fields themselves or across manifolds (many-folds, or many fields).

Mathematically, it might not change anything, maybe only additions to current formulations in quantum mechanics and relativity, but it is only a suggestion of a cause.

Cheers
Mark