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There should not be a strict distinction between matter and energy. And more briefly summarized |
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In the early years of the 20th century, the [[atom]] – long believed to be the smallest building-block of [[matter]] – was proven to consist of even smaller components called [[protons]], [[neutrons]] and [[electrons]], which are known as [[subatomic particles]]. Other subatomic particles began being discovered in the 1960s. In the 1970s, it was discovered that protons and neutrons (and other [[hadron]]s) are themselves made up of smaller particles called [[quarks]]. The [[Standard Model]] is the set of rules that describes the interactions of these particles.
In the 1980s, a new mathematical model of [[theoretical physics]], called [[string theory]], emerged. It showed how all the different subatomic particles known to science could be constructed by hypothetical one-dimensional "strings", infinitesimal building-blocks that have only the dimension of length, but not height or width. These
However, for string theory to be mathematically consistent, the strings must be in a universe of ten [[dimension]]s. This contradicts the experience that our real universe has four dimensions: three space dimensions (height, width, and length) and one time dimension. To "save" their theory, string theorists therefore added the explanation that the additional six dimensions exist but cannot be detected directly. In essence, the idea was that the extra dimensions existed, but they were "curled up" to be so small that they could not be observed. The technical term for this is ''[[Compactification (physics)|compactification]].'' Physicists speculated that the compactified dimensions took the shape of mathematical objects called [[Calabi–Yau manifold]]s.
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