vibratingString

vibratingString displays an animation of four vibrating strings with oscillation modes.

An example call would be >>vibratingString(2).

The program is supposed to present an idea on what different vibrational patterns of (closed) strings look like. In string theory, the different vibrational patterns represent different particles, e.g. electrons, neutrons, photons or gravitons.

The program was originally inspired by an illustration in Becker / Becker / Schwarz: String Theory and M-Theory - A Modern Introduction. Cambridge, 2007, p. 3.

A detailed PDF documentation is also included. It explains the most important variables used in the program and illustrates some of them with a sketch.