OUR universe probably owes its survival to the fact that it is skinny

[SUBMAN1]

Now this one will blow your mind.

-S

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/mg18825204.400

OUR universe probably owes its survival to the fact that it is skinny - but not too skinny.


In the bizarre picture of the cosmos called braneworld, an offshoot of string theory, our three-dimensional universe is merely a membrane floating around in a nine-dimensional space. Many other branes with different numbers of dimensions should also have been created in the big bang.


But Andreas Karch from the University of Washington, Seattle, and Lisa Randall of Harvard University point out that high-dimensional branes are likely to hit each other, and when a brane meets an anti-brane they are both annihilated. Slender 3-branes like ours are far less likely to collide, so they survive.


The dilution that occurs as the 9D space expands in every direction also has a bigger effect on low-dimensional branes than on the high-dimensional kind. So while high-dimension branes suffer mostly from annihilation, low dimension branes suffer mostly from dilution - and mid-dimension branes suffer from both.


The upshot is that if other universes exist, they probably have either three space dimensions like ours, or seven, say Karch and Randall, who have a paper describing their calculations in press at the journal Physical Review Letters.

[snowsub]

A good site with info about Superstring & ten dimesions theory.
In the navigation menu, choose "Imagining the Ten Dimensions"

http://www.tenthdimension.com/flash2.php

[Khayman]

What seems like nonsense has its own internal logic. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson would no doubt be proud. Bizzare is too mild a word

[Dowly]

Wow, that was wierd!

[TteFAboB]

None of that can be measured, perceived or observed?

[Khayman]

Originally Posted by TteFAboB

None of that can be measured, perceived or observed?

Nope. I think the pleasure is in the theory, and the complicated maths that few understand (because it makes no sense). It's all theory, but that could apply to any science. Some might have more in the way of measurable constants or natural effects that fit equation, but they could equally be supreme flights of fancy.

Tentative acceptance of the best fit, with the understanding it may be wrong. That's what real science is. There's no harm in the leaps of imagination shown by that article, in fact lack of imagination would be much more worrying.

[STEED]

I don't know what to make of the article. :hmm:

Good read.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Khayman

Nope. I think the pleasure is in the theory, and the complicated maths that few understand (because it makes no sense). It's all theory, but that could apply to any science. Some might have more in the way of measurable constants or natural effects that fit equation, but they could equally be supreme flights of fancy.

Tentative acceptance of the best fit, with the understanding it may be wrong. That's what real science is. There's no harm in the leaps of imagination shown by that article, in fact lack of imagination would be much more worrying.

Its based on string theory. And since it is a theory (something with evidence to back it up), it probably has some real truths to it. A hypothesis is an observation with a potential explanation, but a theory is a hypothesis that has evidence to its truth.

Now the bad part - The laws of physics are wrong, but they are mostly right. An example that doesn't fit with E=MC2 is our very own Pioneer 10 spacecraft. It is currently accelerating at about 1 nanometer a second per second. It is currently 400,000 km from where it should be. Same thing was happened to Pioneer 12 before communication was lost. According to E=MC2, that is impossible. Only way to explain is two methods - combination of dark matter and String Theory.

-S

PS. If you've got a few hours to kill and want to swamp your mind with information overload, here is a program to watch that will explain string theory to you - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html

[Wim Libaers]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Its based on string theory. And since it is a theory (something with evidence to back it up), it probably has some real truths to it. A hypothesis is an observation with a potential explanation, but a theory is a hypothesis that has evidence to its truth.

Of course, one of the main criticisms against string theory is that it fails to provide testable results.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Wim Libaers

Of course, one of the main criticisms against string theory is that it fails to provide testable results.

That is true. But just like myself sitting on the edge grand canyon wall and I toss a rock off. I will never see it hit the ground because of the distance, but I will make a theory based on the evidence of the fact that gravity is pulling the rock down and eventually it will come to rest on the Earth below. The point is any other scenario, though there may be some hiccups along the way in that the rock could hit water first before settling on the earth, is very unlikely.

Maybe I should have been a science teacher! I just made up that scenario!

-S