Please can someone try to explain this to a confused physics layman?

These theories have really twisted ideas of geometry beyond what the human mind is capable of understanding.
It just adds up, the equations work, but it doesn’t actually make any sense.

I found this exact question on a bathroom wall!Was that you??

Look at a piece of paper. It looks flat, right? To our eyes, a piece of paper is basically 2-dimensional.

But then take a really close look at the edge of the piece of paper. Take a magnifying glass or a microscope to it. Now you can see the paper’s “hidden” 3rd dimension of depth.

As I understand, that’s how the “hidden” dimensions in string theory work. They only show up when you “zoom in” beyond the scale of normal physics, or even apparently quantum physics.

I don’t bother with analogies.

You might say “Oh…” but you still never understand.

I’m still trying to understand space-time curvature. You can have your strings and 11 dimensions. I need a GPS to navigate in just two dimensions.

String theory is as yet unamenable to proof, and is not yet taken seriously as a substitute for the Standard Model.

Theoretical physics is somewhat unscientific nowadays, because of the levels of conjecture.
They choose an extremely complicated (and so improbable) answer, and then try to ‘get it’.

I think this brings too many complications and ambiguities.
I’m not saying its pointless though, not at all, but I think it will be EXTREMELY lucky to bear out the next great leap forward in this manner.

I reckon it is more likely there will be, like natural selection in biology, some kind of meta-theory, which will precipitate a paradigm-shift in the way we interpret the structure of the universe, and allowing theorising to resume in a more methodical way.

@lucillelucillelucille yep, you got me =S

@The_Idler
The entire theory of relativity was created in that matter, based purely on mathematics. And as we all know that turned out to be the greatest breakthrough of the millennium.

Yes but Einstein was a genius & very lucky.

I just said it is very unlikely to bear out ‘solvable’ theories.
(that is, ones which can be equated with all observed phenomena)

Still, Einstein turned out to be kind of wrong, whilst also incredibly right.

@Qingu So is it like we exist in all of them but can’t always perceive our movement in all dimensions? Like that thing about a 2D man going round a twisted loop of paper?
So would it be that in some way we don’t understand we can exist in a trillionth of a mm wide space? =/ or is it relative to something using our measurements… or just a complication of equations or something…? (ha i’m sorry =P)

@fathippo well, all of those things, actually.

@fathippo, I believe—and I could be wrong—that it’s actually the other way around. We don’t exist in the extra dimensions. Rather, the extra dimensions exist in us — in all the particles that make up our bodies.

If you zoomed in on your finger, then zoomed in on the cells, then zoomed in on the DNA, then zoomed in on the atoms, then zoomed in on the electrons and quarks… they’d be hiding in there.

Or it might be more accurate to say that the particles that make up our bodies exist in the extra dimensions.

Like how a sheet of paper exists in 3 dimensions. But if you zoom out, it only looks like (and behaves like) it exists in 2.

@fathippo -I wrote the answer back on the wall.I didn’t make up anything this time either:)

hahahah @Qingu has the right idea.

But this is what I mean. You can never really comprehend it, because our spatio-temporal awareness is programmed by our genetics to work in the mere 4 dimensions, which are immediately relevant to our bodies, since they are all our genetics are concerned about. We are programmed to make babies, not to understand the universe.
Which makes it all the more glorious, when we do.

Richard Feynman (one of its greatest teachers) famously said, “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics”

@lucillelucillelucille thankyou, much obliged, i’ll be checking it in the morning… =]

@The_Idler i’d much rather be programmed to understand the universe than make babies =] oh well

@fathippo It’s nice to meet a fellow intellectual =]

Yes. The dimensions are wrapped up in Calibi-Yao manifolds. There is a very good book on String Theory by Brian Greene called The Elegant Universe

I can confirm, that is a good book.
Not easy, but as easy as it gets.

God Wikipedia’s math articles are terrible.

@Qingu I know it. I only linked to it because I was lazy and it had a cool picture. I don’t even begin to even pretend I understand the math.

WATCH THIS VIDEO
“imagining the 10th dimension”

As well as watching that video, which I also recommend to understand higher dimensions, I would also recommend reading Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott. The copyright is long since passed so the whole story is free to read online.

It provides a great look at how ill equipped we are to comprehend a fourth spacial dimension.

Dont. Just dont. Dont go anywhere near string theory.

@lucillelucillelucille You must visit some REALLY interesting bathrooms. :-)

@ETpro-Alot of thinking goes on there :)

@lucillelucillelucille Ha! On a wall in one I once visited: “Some come here to s**t and stink, I just come to sit and think.”

A theory is just an idea that needs facts, either supporting or denying its claims.

and since string theory has no facts supporting it, it will remain theory for a very long time.. most likely for the rest of our lives.

@ETpro
The full verse:
Some come here to s**t and stink
[Others] come to sit and think
I come here to scratch my b**ls
And read the writing on the walls.

Those who write upon these walls
Roll their s**t in little balls.
Those who read these words of wit
Eat those little balls of s**t.

.
I’ve been in a few bathrooms in my day, too.

@CyanoticWasp Guess I’ve yet to visit a bathroom where the poet could find room for the complete work. :-)