11 Dimensions! this puzzles me...

[jokerboy]

Hi.

 

Recently heard of the rise of new theory in fundamental physics- The String Theory or M-theory.

 

It says that the world is made up of 11 dimensions, about 6 of them are folded around one another and 3 are what we are familiar with(the age-old 3-D).

 

first this folding up of 6 dimensions doesn't fit in mind.

 

second- 6 and 3 make 9 dimensions-- Where are the 2 more to make a total of 11???

 

Can Anyone Help Please???

[Klaynos]

The folding thing I am not very familiar with in mathematical terms but I imagine the maths is annoyingly complex. But I will say that as with quantum mechanics this is so far removed from our everyday experiences it is not surprising it doesn't fit your mind.

 

1 of the others is time. And as for the other, there is great discussion in string theory circles about just how many dimentions you need so *shrug*

[fredrik]

An idea is that some of these speculated extra dimensions are not observed because our everyday resolution of observations can't resolve them.

 

A popular and commonly presented "standard analogy" used to understand the concept is to picture that you are observing something constrained to exist on the surface of a long garden hose. This means to position something on those hose you need to know the position along the hose as well as the position along the circumfrence. Ie. 2 dimensions.

 

But if you watch this system from distance, you see a long hose with something seeming to move along it, so you may only be able to resolve the most significant degree of freedom - position along the hose (1 dimension). The position along a given cross section of the hose possibly isn't that significant, and ignorance about it yields an extra uncertainty that might not be resolved in the overall uncertainty and the system appears 1-dimensional, while on a closeup it would seem 2-dimensional.

 

/Fredrik

[kenshin]

Read "Superforce" by Paul Davis or "Elegant Universe" by Brian Green to have a better understanding of this concept.Try this link also:

 

http://www.tenthdimension.com/medialinks.php

[Phi for All]

I'm moving this to Modern and Theoretical Physics for a more comprehensive viewing.