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T duality revisited
Mar. 13th, 2006 09:47 pmLast July, I made a post about T-duality, a duality in string theory between small and large distance scales, wherein I linked to the zoomquilt flash animation. Here's another (completely metaphorical) way on the net I found of visualizing such things. Behold in amazement as these two images interchange when the scale on which they're viewed changes:
Close up, the angry face is on the left. Viewed from further back, their roles are reversed!... in much the same way as momentum and winding number are interchanged in T-duality. Actually, these images could be used almost as well as a metaphor for what happens in more traditional quantum field theory, where the coupling constants (such as the fine structure constant &alpha in QED, approximately 1/137 when viewed from far away) change their values or "run" as you look closer and closer. In this case, the coupling constants don't usually switch with each other, but with the aid of supersymmetry they might all converge to the same value if you zoom all the way in to the GUT scale.
If you don't feel like walking across the room to view the above images from afar, click here instead to see the images automatically scaled down to different sizes which also reveals the duality.
Close up, the angry face is on the left. Viewed from further back, their roles are reversed!... in much the same way as momentum and winding number are interchanged in T-duality. Actually, these images could be used almost as well as a metaphor for what happens in more traditional quantum field theory, where the coupling constants (such as the fine structure constant &alpha in QED, approximately 1/137 when viewed from far away) change their values or "run" as you look closer and closer. In this case, the coupling constants don't usually switch with each other, but with the aid of supersymmetry they might all converge to the same value if you zoom all the way in to the GUT scale.
If you don't feel like walking across the room to view the above images from afar, click here instead to see the images automatically scaled down to different sizes which also reveals the duality.
