How many dimensions are there, really?

[someone_else]

During some of my reading, I have come across references that state that there are many more dimensions than the standard 4 that I can think of. Can anyone here shed some light on how many dimensions exist? And, also, can someone briefly describe some of the more abstract dimensions? I would really appreciate it. <br /><br />Please keep in mind that I am a layperson and need the simplest answers possible. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

[rodrunner79]

1 - Time Dimension<br />3 - Spatial Dimensions (left/right, up/down, back/foward)<br />6 - Curled Dimensions<br />and 1 Encompassing<br />11 total dimensions.<br /><br />The curled dimensions are plank size which gives strings 9 dimensions to vibrate in.<br /><br />I'm still wondering if there are names for those other 6 (curled) dimensions.

 

[someone_else]

What is an encompassing dimension?

 

[rodrunner79]

The encompasing simply wraps together differing string theories in a hack job need to have one theory of everything rather than let string theory splinter off.

 

[mooware]

<font color="yellow">Why, there are 5, of course!</font><br /><br />That's so corny, it's funny! <br /><br />

 

[vogon13]

How many dimensions are there, really?<br /><br />Just the 1, but it gets around.<br /><br /><br /><br />{I've got a million of 'em}<br /><br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[nexium]

We are almost certain of the 4 dimensions that we perceive. Up to 21 (perhaps more) have been theorized by mathematitions. I can't do the math, so my guess is less credible than zero point energy and abductions by extra terrestrials. Neil

 

[pyoko]

Well I think we've sorted all that out now. If you'd like to know, I can tell you that in your Universe you move freely in three dimensions that you call space. You move in a straight line in a fourth, which you call time, and stay rooted to one place in a fifth, which is the first fundamental of probability. After that it gets a bit complicated, and there's all sorts of stuff going on in dimensions 13 to 22 that you really wouldn't want to know about. All you really need to know for the moment is that the Universe is a lot more complicated then you might think.<br /><br />- Douglas Adams, "Mostly Harmless" <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p><span style="color:#ff9900" class="Apple-style-span">-pyoko</span> <span style="color:#333333" class="Apple-style-span">the</span> <span style="color:#339966" class="Apple-style-span">duck </span></p><p><span style="color:#339966" class="Apple-style-span"><span style="color:#808080;font-style:italic" class="Apple-style-span">It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.</span></span></p> </div>

 

[joshbe]

A dimension is just a charecteristic of an object. There can be infinite numbers of dimensions if you want there to be.

 

[frobozz]

Doesn't this only hold if you accept String Theory? Does any one know of another theory which predicts extra dimensions at all?

 

[telescopewizard]

Remember it is all theory... why not leave the philosophy behind and post some resources, sites or white papers explaining what is being done to test matter...

 

[ambellina]

doesn't the cosmic string theory have an infinte number of dimensions? or am i way off here?

 

[frobozz]

I am fairly certain that string theory only predicts a finite number of physical dimensions.

 

[electronman]

It is all in the mind of the painter-artist-scientist. If it works a MonaLisa for the scientist and we benefit but if it doesn't work then it is another canvass to the trash. The important thing is everyone must continue trying. Because in it is the power to unlock the secret of whatever we"ll found.

 

[newtonian]

frobozz - Yes, I know of other theories involving other dimensions - not just String theory.<br /><br />For example, the brane theory for the origin of our universe (collision of dimensional branes).<br /><br />The Bible also leaves open the possibility of other dimensions.<br /><br />Here are a few examples, which do need to be studied scientifically to determine if other dimensions are involved:<br /><br />1. God cannot be "contained" in our universe, or heaven - or, for that matter, the heaven of the heavens [which may mean a much larger universe containing our universe and other universes.<br /><br />Stated in these verses for example:<br /><br />(1 Kings 8:27) 27 “But will God truly dwell upon the earth? Look! The heavens, yes, the heaven of the heavens, themselves cannot contain you; how much less, then, this house that I have built. . .<br /><br />2 Chronicles 2:6 - For the heavens and the heaven of the heavens cannot contain him, <br /><br />This naturally begs the question - Is God simply larger in our normal 3 dimensions, or is God multidimensional so that our 3-d (or 11-d, etc.) universe cannot contain God?<br /><br />Or, of course, both of the above - or simply that God's energy cannot be contained in the heaven of the heavens - or all three!<br /><br />2. The illustrative description of our universe implies other dimensions may intersect our universe, perhaps beyond our visible portion of universe:<br /><br />(Isaiah 40:22) . . .There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth, the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers, the One who is stretching out the heavens just as a fine gauze, who spreads them out like a tent in which to dwell. . .<br /><br />Our universe is indeed stretching out, or expanding, like a fine gauze with its threads and filaments.<br /><br />Going further, beyond our current scientific verification, tents in Bible times were in many shapes, the tabernacle was a rectangular prism. If our section of universe is part of only one tentcloth (fabric of

 

[frobozz]

My apologies, but isn't the theory of branes a part of string theory, or is their a seperate theory which uses the so called "p-branes" to solve it's problems?

 

[sneezer1]

4

 

[j_rankin]

There are 6 versions of string theory - the most highly regarded is known as 'M theory' and the mathematics involved predicts that there are 11 dimensions -<br />The 4 dimensions of space/time<br />6 more dimensions that the smallest units (strings) of energy utilize and are comprised of,<br />And 1 more dimension, which is the 'brane' of the universe itself.<br /><br />To try and briefly explain what the other dimensions are - if you get small enough, then the things that looked and responded to you when you were larger, seem to have more dimensions than they did before.<br /><br />For example - If you look at a piece of string, it seems to have only one dimension, and it responds to us as if it did only have one dimension. But to a microscopic animal it has 3 dimensions.<br /><br />What string theory predicts is that there are more dimensions that are only perceived on the absolute nano-nano-nano scale of things. <br /><br />And the 'strings' themselves are units of energy that vibrate in different ways, in a similar way to how magnet domains behave but much more complex.<br /><br />So far this is the only way they have managed to make the mathematics of gravity, electro-magnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces all add up together.<br /><br />Other versions of string theory have predicted up to 26 dimensions.

 

[j_rankin]

M theory predicts that outside of our universe there is only one dimension. Spooky.

 

[cosmictraveler]

Cosmology <br /><br />Universes consistent with a new dimensional cosmological principle are being modelled and multi-dimensional cosmologies are being developed to solve the horizon and other problems. Cosmological models with extra dimensions, both minimal and non-minimal and their bearing on inflation are being studied. <br /><br />Particle Theory<br />The main area of interest is the derivation of properties of low energy supergravity that may have a bearing on particle physics at accelerator energies from compactifications of perturbative heterotic string theories and M-theory. The latter term refers to the unique theory which encompasses in its moduli space the five 10-dimensional perturbative string theories and eleven-dimensional supergravity.<br />Two of the most interesting phenomenologically corners of moduli space of M-theory is perturbative heterotic string with exceptional symmetry as well as the the 11-dimensional supergravity limit which is the strong coupling limit of the former. Duality symmetries correlate the six corners of moduli space and have deep implications for the moduli dependence of the effective action of the resulting supergravity theory.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Heterotic string theories begin with 10 dimensions for the right moving degrees of freedom and 26 dimensions for the left moving degrees of freedom. <font color="white">Various constructions of a four-dimensional theory exist which may describe the world in which we live, eg orbifold compactification, free fermion construction, compactification on Calabi-Yau manifolds and tensoring of representations of the superconformal algebra. Of these, orbifold compactification, ie compactification on a torus with points identified by a discrete group, is perhaps the best developed. In the low energy limit (compared to the string scale) the string theory reduces to an effective N = 1 supergravity theory and it is possible in principle to derive information from the string theory concerning par</font></font> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>It does not require many words to speak the truth. Chief Joseph</p> </div>

 

[newtonian]

frobozz - Ah, the problem of so many different brains - or, er, branes.<br /><br />I was referring to the collision of branes as one model for the origin of our universe. <br /><br />You are referring to a different brane theory model, as in the following article from Encarta 2003 archives:<br /><br />"One of the so-far intractable problems in theoretical physics is the unification of quantum mechanics (which describes electromagnetism and the weak and strong forces in subatomic particles) and general relativity (the theory of gravity). In the mid-1980s theorists devised a highly abstract set of theories in which elementary particles were represented by vibrations on ten-dimensional objects called superstrings. Since then, theorists have developed an even grander scheme known as M-theory and are now examining "D-branes" ("branes" comes from "membranes"), which are also multidimensional entities. One unproven possibility is that strings are made of D-branes.<br /><br />Bringing these concepts more down to Earth, in 1996, theorists at Harvard University and the University of California at Santa Barbara found a way to simulate black holes — superdense concentrations of matter that exert such an immense gravitational pull that nothing, not even light, can escape if it comes too close — from D-branes. In 1997 the work was extended to the realm of quantum mechanics to elucidate how the "information" lost when a black hole swallows matter might actually be preserved."<br /><br />Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2003. © 1993-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.<br /><br />I hope microsoft doesn't mind my pasting that, btw.<br /><br />On the collision of branes theory, I will research a quote for you.

 

[newtonian]

J_rankin - As in the 5th dimension in the collision of branes model for the origin of our universe in the following SDC links?:<br /><br />http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/bigbang_alternative_010413-2.html<br /><br />http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/bigbang_alternative_010413-3.html<br /><br />That is just one of many models - and one must be careful of semantics - as in defining "brane" and defining "dimension" and defining "universe."