Posted: Oct 09, 2011 4:56 pm
As for strings, how could a concrete physical object possibly have a (nonzero) length but no (nonzero) width?
(There are infinitely many possible nonzero widths below, say, 10-100mm.)
Brian Green writes (in The Fabric of Reality) that strings are "one-dimensional vibrating filaments of energy."
Green apparently says that strings consist of energy, which would mean that energy is some stuff of which physical things can consist—but it is not! What Greene can coherently say is that strings are ontologically reducible to tiny vibrationally energized zones of spacetime that are string- or loop-shaped. For then those (3- or 4-dimensional) zones (or regions) are the true bearers or havers of the string energy without consisting of that energy. (Things have, possess, instantiate, or exemplify their properties, but they don't consist of, aren't composed of or constituted by them.)
(There are infinitely many possible nonzero widths below, say, 10-100mm.)
Brian Green writes (in The Fabric of Reality) that strings are "one-dimensional vibrating filaments of energy."
Green apparently says that strings consist of energy, which would mean that energy is some stuff of which physical things can consist—but it is not! What Greene can coherently say is that strings are ontologically reducible to tiny vibrationally energized zones of spacetime that are string- or loop-shaped. For then those (3- or 4-dimensional) zones (or regions) are the true bearers or havers of the string energy without consisting of that energy. (Things have, possess, instantiate, or exemplify their properties, but they don't consist of, aren't composed of or constituted by them.)