M-Theory Musings

What theory unifies forces, weak, strong, With gravity— also, to which belong All the string theories of why and because? To answer these queries, M-theory does. Proponents aver it offers clarity As to the issue of singularity.— Where there’s a will there’s a way, So they say… In the beginning our universe sprang From membranes colliding to cause a Big Bang… Hence matter and energy stem from vibrations of strings seen by seers In a music of spheres. One mode of vibration, or ‘note’, makes the string an electron, Another a photon… And what of Higgs-boson? There’s even a mode for the graviton, thought to have gravity’s force. So vibrating strings would then be the source To create tiny articles which we call Elementary particles— one and all. Dimensions— four plus compactified seven— Equal a total that’s oddly eleven… To wit, though string theories wound up at the tenth, They had to add one more that’s odd to the nth. Do we have enough sense or senses extended To fathom those p-branes M-theory intended And get to the bottom of hyper spacetime In this super multiverse theory sublime? What sounding vibration Strange seeming sensation Might set the strings strumming Or maybe branes humming Is something to ponder, One’s whimsies to wander— My mind like the wind evanescent can roam O’er billowing waves and ineffable foam With parallels plenty of our bubble home… Thus I heard M-theory’s word. Albeit in physics there’s much knowledge base, What waters of wisdom could ever embrace Such cosmic curled places with hyperspace face? Eerily far we’ve come to here From bards’ illusions yesteryear— When heavens would sing lullabies, With moon and stars to harmonize Midst luminescent light display That might have been the Milky Way Overturning all its jars In a shower of shooting stars… How flimsy, fleeting, and fragile life seems, In our floating realm like a land of dreams! Amen— let poets lyricize yet Sweeter reveries lest we forget Dearer wonders perchance of yore From whilom membranes nevermore Where earthlings gazed at clearer skies With yonders nearer to our eyes, In a once upon a time divine P-brane world of auld langsyne… – Harley White < December 14, 2010 >