The Long and the Short of It...

One of the tantalizing, unanswered questions in GST is: 'Why are some strings

A classic nursery of Long Strings

long and others short?' My own research has turned up some interesting clues...for example, I've observed that long strings are often only attached to something at one end, while short strings are frequently attached at both ends. My hypothesis is that long strings are the young of the string world, still seeking some aspect of the cosmos to which to become attached, while short strings are older and have accomplished their goals of attachment. Or, to put it another way, short strings were once long strings; indeed, if one were to assemble numerous similar short strings, one might very well have a long string! We cannot guess at this point how many Original Long Strings might still remain in the universe, although it has been suggested that the universe as we know it began as One Big Ball of String. Some scientists have pointed out that there are just too many kinds of string for the Big Ball theory, that we now live in a multi-string universe, although this does not preclude the possibility that at one time there were many uni-string universes that are now all intermixed. This is sometimes referred to as the 'Lots of Balls' theory. Short strings are often thought of as the 'working strings' of the universe. They generally have clear purposes, and although the elements of the universe that they tie together are frequently commonplace, the mind shudders to consider the consequences if those

A typical Short String holds this ferry together

elements were allowed to separate and wander off willy-nilly! Research into Long and Short theories is sometimes complicated by the apparent co-existence of short and long strings in close proximity, although this does support the concept that short strings are possibly fragments of primordial long strings. How, for example, does a long string become multiple short strings? And why do we note that whereas there may be only one or two long strings in a group, there are often numerous short strings of varying thicknesses, colours, strands and composition - where are the original long strings from which they were derived? Although studies are ongoing and inconclusive, research suggests that a great deal of string shortening occurs near bodies of water. Given that the universe is about 80% water, this is not surprising; however, the relative proportion of Long String to Short String near water is revealing: for every 100 metres of Long String, there are 1729.3 kilometres of Short String!*

Is this the environment in which Long Strings become Short?

As the surface of the earth demonstrates approximately the same proportion of water as the rest of the universe, we can begin to see virtue in the possibility that string in general is plentiful near water because water is the medium by which the universe could float away, and it is string that ultimately prevents that by tying the more solid parts of our universe together, especially near water! Perhaps it is no accident that the word denoting the major structural component of a string - a 'strand' - also means 'beach'. Think about it!

* source unknown. I might have made those numbers up. Nobody said this was an exact science, so chill, eh?