# nLab The World in Eleven Dimensions

Contents

## Phenomenology

This page collects material related to the book collection

• Mike Duff

The world in eleven dimensions:

Supergravity, Supermembranes and $M$-theory

IoP 1999

that collects and comments key articles in the (pre-)history of M-theory (M-branes in 11-dimensional supergravity) in the 1990s.

For related texts see at books about string theory.

# Contents

On the M2-brane

On the M5-brane

on M-theory

## 5 Intersecting branes and black holes

On black branes, BPS-states of intersecting M-branes,

## 6 $M$-theory and duality

On duality in string theory, mostly S-duality and dual heterotic string theory, ending with AdS-CFT

On whether “M” is really for “membrane” after all:

In other words, perhaps $D = 11$ supergravity together with its BPS configurations: plane wave, membrane, fivebrane, KK monopole and the $D = 11$ embedding of the Type II eightbraneare are all there is to $M$-theory and that we need look no further for new degrees of freedom. (p. 329)

Concluding with:

future historians may judge the period 1984-95 as a time when theorists were like boys playing by the sea shore, and diverting themselves with the smoother pebbles or prettier shells of perturbative ten-dimensiorial superstrings while the great ocean of non-perturbative eleven-dimensional M-theory lay all undiscovered before them. (p.330)

Compare to the situation 20 years later as in

with its section 12: “Keep true to the dreams of thy youth: M-theory”

category: reference

Last revised on June 11, 2019 at 11:19:52. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.