8 Beyond the Standard Model
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matter. Actually no reductionist type description is owed. Time and again physicists
driven by their hard wiring processed the experimental data utilizing theoretical
frameworks and were able to come up with explicit formulae; formulae that were
able to express on less than one page the essence of a basic force. A key assumption
used and vindicated was that the basic constituents of nature are point-like. The
electromagnetic forces, the weak interactions and even the powerful color forces
were rounded up one by one, straddled by the rules of quantum mechanics and
then exhibited on a fraction of a page. Using these formulae, an accomplished
student abandoned on an isolated island can predict with an amazing accuracy the
outcome of some very important experiments involving the basic forces. The level
of accuracy ranges from a few percent in the case of some aspects of the color forces
to better than 10 −10 for some features of the electromagnetic interactions.
8.4.2 Why Change a Winning Team: Extended Constituents
Are Called Upon to Replace Point-like Ones
Point particles have done a tremendous job in shouldering the standard model of
particle interactions. Why replace them by extended objects? In the section on
SUSY we have outlined several of the reasons for that. The standard model does
reflect the enormous progress made in the understanding of particle physics but it
is not perfect, at least as seen by a critical theorist through his TPs. The model is
afflicted with tens of parameters as well as what are termed naturality problems.
The values of some physical quantities, such as the mass of the Higgs particle,
are required to be much lighter than the theory would naturally suggest. Ignoring
the NOH principle, scientists find themselves once again on the path of searching
for a more concise description. One effort was directed towards unifying the three
interactions, thus following the conceptual unification of the electromagnetic and
weak interactions, described each by a gauge theory. That direction led to possible
unifications at scales not so distant from where quantum gravity effects are definitely
supposed to become important. In fact, gravity, the first of the basic forces that was
expressed by a mathematical formula, is the remaining unbridled known force which
is considered currently as basic. Here the quantum breaking methods based on the
concept of a basic point like structure have failed. Sometimes what is considered
failure is also a measure of intellectual restlessness, still it made sense to search
for alternatives. Actually even with no apparent failure lurking upon basic physics,
a study of a theory of fundamentally extended objects is called for. After all, why
should the basic constituents be just point like? String theory is a natural extension
of the idea that the basic constituents are point-like, it is an investigation into
the possibility that basic constituents are ab initio extended objects. The simplest
such extended objects being one-dimensional, that is strings. In a sense one may
regard also point particles as extended objects dressed by their interactions. The
direct consequences in this case are however totally different. It turned out that
503
matter. Actually no reductionist type description is owed. Time and again physicists
driven by their hard wiring processed the experimental data utilizing theoretical
frameworks and were able to come up with explicit formulae; formulae that were
able to express on less than one page the essence of a basic force. A key assumption
used and vindicated was that the basic constituents of nature are point-like. The
electromagnetic forces, the weak interactions and even the powerful color forces
were rounded up one by one, straddled by the rules of quantum mechanics and
then exhibited on a fraction of a page. Using these formulae, an accomplished
student abandoned on an isolated island can predict with an amazing accuracy the
outcome of some very important experiments involving the basic forces. The level
of accuracy ranges from a few percent in the case of some aspects of the color forces
to better than 10 −10 for some features of the electromagnetic interactions.
8.4.2 Why Change a Winning Team: Extended Constituents
Are Called Upon to Replace Point-like Ones
Point particles have done a tremendous job in shouldering the standard model of
particle interactions. Why replace them by extended objects? In the section on
SUSY we have outlined several of the reasons for that. The standard model does
reflect the enormous progress made in the understanding of particle physics but it
is not perfect, at least as seen by a critical theorist through his TPs. The model is
afflicted with tens of parameters as well as what are termed naturality problems.
The values of some physical quantities, such as the mass of the Higgs particle,
are required to be much lighter than the theory would naturally suggest. Ignoring
the NOH principle, scientists find themselves once again on the path of searching
for a more concise description. One effort was directed towards unifying the three
interactions, thus following the conceptual unification of the electromagnetic and
weak interactions, described each by a gauge theory. That direction led to possible
unifications at scales not so distant from where quantum gravity effects are definitely
supposed to become important. In fact, gravity, the first of the basic forces that was
expressed by a mathematical formula, is the remaining unbridled known force which
is considered currently as basic. Here the quantum breaking methods based on the
concept of a basic point like structure have failed. Sometimes what is considered
failure is also a measure of intellectual restlessness, still it made sense to search
for alternatives. Actually even with no apparent failure lurking upon basic physics,
a study of a theory of fundamentally extended objects is called for. After all, why
should the basic constituents be just point like? String theory is a natural extension
of the idea that the basic constituents are point-like, it is an investigation into
the possibility that basic constituents are ab initio extended objects. The simplest
such extended objects being one-dimensional, that is strings. In a sense one may
regard also point particles as extended objects dressed by their interactions. The
direct consequences in this case are however totally different. It turned out that