Sorry guys dimensions next time🥲bc I fucked up...a bit

After my last post about string theory I got a really good question:
If particles are just different vibrational states of strings, does that mean that matter is never truly destroyed, and that the same string simply keeps vibrating in different ways? And does this imply that there is a fixed number of strings in the Universe?

In string theory things are not that simple….
Strings do whatever they want here, fkn bastards
They can split, join, be created and annihilated, just like particles in ordinary quantum field theory.
They are basically particles, but strings :)))

Energy, momentum, charge and other quantum numbers are conserved.
But the number of objects is not conserved.

Basically you just MUST obey the law of energy conservation and do whatever you want: create new or 10 new strings, whatever.

A particle can turn into two others, or into three or more. Any idea why at least 2 new particles?😏

This is already true in standard quantum physics, and it remains true in string theory.

The guitar string analogy works great for understanding one thing:
different particles correspond to different vibrational modes of a string.

But this analogy stops working when we start talking about interactions and decay.
Here it already becomes a mess, sorry ))))

This is not just one and the same string endlessly changing its music.
Decay essentially involves the disappearance of a string and the appearance of new ones.
Just imagine your face if a guitar string disappeared and two new ones appeared in its place…lol
Yeah, this is where I fucked up by my own analogy 🙂

And no, there is no fixed total number of strings in the Universe.
They can appear and transform back and forth.
Just like electron-positron pairs do, as example

So:

Different vibrational modes are different particles
But!

A transition of a particle into another one is only possible through interaction

A string cannot just become an electron from a photon, the laws of physics wouldn't break