String Theory for Everyone

Interactive visualization

String Theory, one note at a time.

Three interactive levels walk you from a vibrating classical string, through the relativistic worldsheet it sweeps, to the quantum oscillator spectrum where particles are born.

A string is a 1D object.

Unlike a point particle, a string has a length - its vibrations are what particles are made of.

Vibrations are particles.

Each distinct vibration pattern of the string carries a fixed mass and quantum number, so every particle is just a note struck on the same string.

It sweeps a 2D worldsheet.

As a string moves through time it traces a 2D worldsheet, threading together quantum mechanics and general relativity.