This is  a dirty wiki quote.

String theory is a developing branch of quantum mechanics and general relativity with the aim of merging and reconciling the two areas of physics into a quantum theory of gravity.^[1] The strings of string theory are one-dimensional oscillating lines, but they are no longer considered fundamental to the theory, which can be formulated in terms of points or surfaces too.

Since its inception as the dual resonance model which described the strongly interacting hadrons as strings, the term string theory has changed to include any of a group of related superstring theories which unite them. One shared property of all these theories is the holographic principle. String theory itself comes in many different formulations, each one with a different mathematical structure, and each best describing different physical circumstances. But the principles shared by these approaches, their mutual logical consistency, and the fact that some of them easily include the standard model of particle physics^{[citation needed]}, has led many of the world’s greatest living physicists (such as Edward Witten, Juan Maldacena and Leonard Susskind) to believe that the string theory is a step towards the correct fundamental description of nature^{[citation needed]}. In particular, string theory is the first candidate for the theory of everything (TOE), a way to describe the known fundamental forces (gravitational, electromagnetic, weak and strong interactions) and matter (quarks and leptons) in a mathematically complete system.

Many prominent physicists, such as Richard Feynman and Sheldon Lee Glashow have criticized string theory for not providing any quantitative experimental predictions.^{[2] [3]} Like any other quantum theory of gravity, it is widely believed that testing the theory directly would require prohibitively expensive feats of engineering. Whether there are stringent indirect tests of the theory is unknown.

String theory is of interest to many physicists because it requires new mathematical and physical ideas to mesh together its very different mathematical formulations. One of the most inclusive of these is the 11-dimensional M-theory, which requires spacetime to have eleven dimensions,^[4] as opposed to the usual three spatial dimensions and the fourth dimension of time. The original string theories from the 1980s describe special cases of M-theory where the eleventh dimension is a very small circle or a line, and if these formulations are considered as fundamental, then string theory requires ten dimensions. But the theory also describes universes like ours, with four observable spacetime dimensions, as well as universes with up to 10 flat space dimensions, and also cases where the position in some of the dimensions is not described by a real number, but by a completely different type of mathematical quantity. So the notion of spacetime dimension is not fixed in string theory: it is best thought of as different in different circumstances.^[5]

String theories include objects more general than strings, called branes. The word brane, derived from “membrane”, refers to a variety of interrelated objects, such as D-branes, black p-branes and Neveu-Schwarz 5-branes. These are extended objects that are charged sources for differential form generalizations of the vector potential electromagnetic field. These objects are related to one another by a variety of dualities. Black hole-like black p-branes are identified with D-branes, which are endpoints for strings, and this identification is called Gauge-gravity duality. Research on this equivalence has led to new insights on quantum chromodynamics, the fundamental theory of the strong nuclear force.

I’m attracted to this kinda stuff as it examines how elements can exist in different states and in unison.

Quantum Physics

This article on gizmodo points out some discoveries in qutum mechanics and in specific to how they might be applied to future computing.

Remember when, just the other day, we were talking about the future of storage, and how quantum mechanics is on the pipe dream, it’s totally magic list for now? Yeah. Me too. Thing is, shit just got real: Updated.Real, and more importantly observable. Observable is important because until this week when one talked about quantum mechanics they were either spouting a lot of unproven theory about things way too tiny to be measured or they were Lt. Cmdr. Geordi LaForge on the engineering deck of the Enterprise D.

No longer!

A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving. - Nature

Bwah? It reads like science fiction, to me, but apparently science guy Andrew Cleland and his team, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, were able to cool a tiny 30-micrometer metal paddle to the point where it reached a quantum mechanical ground state. Or, as my limited understand calls it, the place where nature starts to get all freaky deaky.

After the cooling process was complete, Cleland and company were able to “simultaneously set the paddle moving while leaving it standing still.” Again: The metal paddle was both vibrating and not vibrating at the same time, and in a way that was observable by the naked eye.

Are you freaking out yet? Because I know a few cats in dark boxes that are right now.

Updated: Obviously, quantum mechanics is not, nor will be, my area of expertise. As AreWeThereYeti explains, better than I, “It’s important to realize that they didn’t actually observe it in a superposition. All they said was that the paddle is large enough that it could be observed by the naked eye, but not while it is in a superposition state.”

Right. So the object is observable by the human eye. Mind, slightly less blown.

Updated: Be sure to check out Justin’s reply to AreWeThereYeti’s comment as well. I promoted it so it should appear for everyone. Interesting, record-correcting, stuff in there. The debate continues -j.l. [Nature via Kottke]

(I also like how there is a debate on the subject emerging, but that’s another tangent I can’t be bothered going down right now heh)

So I guess really looking at this stuff I’m interested in how information might exist in different states, for different people or via different means of consumption. I really need to find some research papers into this kinda stuff I think.

Existence

I quite liked this deffinition I found on existence. I don’t wanna commit right now to what kind of ‘information’ I deal with in the long term. As a digital media student it’s hard not to think of certain things like academic information, or something to do with a project, but I can see myself examining a more philosophical tangent or cultural phenomenon in my project.

In common usage, existence is the world of which we are aware through our senses and persists independently without them. In academic philosophy the word has a more specialized meaning, being contrasted with essence, which specifies different forms of existence as well as different identity conditions for objects and properties. Philosophers investigate questions such as “What exists?” “How do we know?” “To what extent are the senses a reliable guide to existence?” “What is the meaning, if any, of assertions of the existence of categories, ideas, and abstractions?”

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

Epistemology studies criteria of truth, defining “primary truths” inherently accepted in the investigation of knowledge. The first is existence. It is inherent in every analysis. Its self-evident, à priori nature cannot be consistently doubted, since a person objecting to existence according to some standard of proof must implicitly accept the standard’s existence as a premise.^[1]

Materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter, that all things are composed of material, and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance.

Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have self-sustaining biological processes that exist from those that do not^[2][3] —either because such functions have ceased (death), or else because they lack such functions and are classified as “inanimate.”^[4]

In particular I was interested in this part:

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

I find i interesting how so many different disciplines can deal with the same questions and in relation to vastly varying subjects.

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world.^[1] Someone who studies metaphysics would be called either a “metaphysician”^[2] or a “metaphysicist.”^[3]

The word derives from the Greek words μετά (metá) (meaning “beyond” or “after”) and φυσικά (physiká) (meaning “physical”), “physical” referring to those works on matter by Aristotle in antiquity. The prefix meta- (“beyond”) was attached to the chapters in Aristotle’s work that physically followed after the chapters on “physics,” in posthumously edited collections. Aristotle himself did not call these works Metaphysics. Aristotle called some of the subjects treated there “first philosophy.”

A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into what types of things there are in the world and what relations these things bear to one another. The metaphysician also attempts to clarify the notions by which people understand the world, including existence, objecthood, property, space, time, causality, and possibility.

Before the development of modern science, scientific questions were addressed as a part of metaphysics known as “natural philosophy“; the term “science” itself meant “knowledge” of epistemological origin. The scientific method, however, made natural philosophy an empirical and experimental activity unlike the rest of philosophy, and by the end of the eighteenth century it had begun to be called “science” in order to distinguish it from philosophy. Thereafter, metaphysics became the philosophical enquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence.