From New States of Matter to a Unification of Light and Electrons

For a long time, people believe that all possible states of matter aredescribed by Landau symmetry-breaking theory. Recently we find that string-netcondensation provide a mechanism to produce states of matter beyond thesymmetry-breaking description. The collective excitations of the string-netcondensed states turn out to be our old friends, photons and electrons (andother gauge bosons and fermions). This suggests that our vacuum is a string-netcondensed state. Light and electrons in our vacuum have a unified origin --string-net condensation.