This post is based on Brian Greene's video, 'Making Sense of String Theory.' It's on youtube and can be easily googled. It is less than twenty minutes. You'll get a lot more out of this post if you watch Greene's video first. Thanks.
We perceive and function in a world that is composed of supposedly three dimensions: length, width and depth, and these three, in turn, function over time, which can be considered a fourth dimension. Now string theorists suggest that there may be a lot more than these four, perhaps ten dimensions plus time and the first question that they pose, that Greene poses in his video, is "where are they?" To explain where they are, how they could be hidden from us, he uses the following example: if we misperceive a wire to be flat when it is actually cylindrical, and there are tiny creaures moving around within that cylinder, there would be no way, given our assumption of flatness, to locate those tiny creatures. Well, this is certainly true. If I misperceive a house, which may look like a facade from certain perspectives and at a certain distance, then I would have no way of locating the people that were in the bedroom or the dining room or the living room of that house; no way of locating the rooms themselves. If, however, I knew the wire were cylindrical and the house was not a facade, but a three dimensional house, I would have no problem locating any of it. And please note that both these misperceptions are based on the notion that something, the wire or the facade of the house, is flat. They are not. There is no such thing in the real world as a 'flat' thing. If something were truly flat it would have no depth, and having no depth, it would cease to exist. The reason this is important is that the strings of string theory, (which are not strings at all, but vibrating loops of energy) are so unfathomably tiny, that the tiniest thickness that we could imagine, or the flattest object that we could imagine, would contain within it's tiny width a whole universe of these strings. To get a sense of the size of these strings, if the universe, which is, supposedly ninety-five billion light years in diameter, which means that it would take light, which travels at a speed that circumnavigates our planet seven times per second, it would take light ninety-five billion years travelling at that speed, over six times the entire supposed age of the universe, to travel from one end of it to the other (and it would never get there because the universe is, supposedly, expanding faster than the light is traveling); if an atom were blown up to be the unfathomable size of the universe that it currently is, then one of these strings would be, at the same ratio, the size of a small tree.
I don't want to keep harping on the fact that these strings are not really strings, but filaments of energy. The reason I do so now is that string theory is supposed to be able, one day, to give the final answer to a quest that scientists have been engaged in for millenia: What are, in Greene's words, "the basic, fundamental, indivisible, uncuttable constituents making up everything in the world around us?" The reason, perhaps, that string theorists insist on calling them strings, rather than filaments of energy, is because the quest has really been for the ultimate particle, the ultimate bit of material, into which the physical universe is arranged and rearranged to form all the multitude of objects we see around us. The fact, if string theorists are right, that the answer to the question is not matter at all, but a filament of energy; that the physical universe is supported by tiny, tiny loops of energy which create all the matter we see, really turns materialism on it's head. Rather than the universe being supported by eternal and indivisible tiny particles of matter, it is supported by tiny filaments of vibrating energy. The foundation of the universe, then, is not matter, but mysterious energy filaments in precise shapes and vibrating eternally at precise frequencies; and the origin of these precise and eternal and countless filaments is utterly mysterious. But string theorists are not ready to admit that yet. So I will still continue to call them 'strings' although I don't want you, the reader, to forget that they are not.
String theorists are trying to figure out a system whereby these different filaments, each vibrating at a different frequency and each spinning at a unique angle and shape, would create all the different spins and charges and masses of all the different subatomic particles. The reason string theorists need ten dimensions, is because with only three dimensions plus time, their calculations don't even approach coming out correctly. The only way they can approach correctness, the only way that gives them hope that some day they will get all the calculations right, is if there are ten dimensions. So ten dimensions are imagined because it's the only way of getting their numbers right. Each of these loops must be vibrating in it's own dimension, each with it's own strange shape, length, and thickness. Greene uses the metaphor of a French horn. The different shapes and sizes of the various tubes of the French horn yield different vibrations, different frequencies, when air is blown through them. The French horn player, as he is blowing air through his instrument, is opening and closing different stops, which direct the air through different tubes and this creates the different frequencies and sounds of the French horn. In fact, not a French horn, but a Calabi-Yau shape has been designed which attempts to replicate what these ten intertwining dimensions may look like. If the universe is full of countless Calabi-Yau shapes, we can't see them because they are, supposedly, curled up in the tiny spaces between photons of light. These interstitial spaces are presented as squares in a flat diagram or cubes in a three dimensional diagram. The space in between photons is the 'too small to be seen space,' and this is where the ten dimensions arranged in a Calabi-Yau shape which separates each dimension from each other, and supports and withstands the tremedous vibrations (tremendous in relation to the size of the filaments) of the filaments within them, exists.
It should be noted that adding extra dimensions does not create the possibility of movement that would otherwise be impossible. The proof is that the so called ten dimensional space is replicated in models called Calabi-Yau structures. These structures, of course, are built in three dimensions plus time. All the possible shapes are represented in three dimensions. How the extra dimensions are really functioning in the theory, is to provide an explanation for how these different shapes are supported and sustained and separated, one from the other.
Okay, so that's the basic gist of it. Let's first get back to the three dimensions: length, width and depth. Greene asks where the other dimensions are, but I would like to first ask where 'length, width and depth are?" Do they exist in the real world, or are they ideas, mental constructs, to help us locate things in space and chart the movement of things in space? Does length, width and depth have any physical reality? And by that I mean do any of them have the ability to resist or exert a force? Is my or your movement constrained in any way by length, width and depth? It's been quite a while, but I can remember doing a sommersault. In more recent, but not very recent, memory, I recall doing the 'twist', the 'watusi', the 'jitterbug' and the 'mashed potatoes'. In what way have I been constrained by three dimensions in doing these movements? In more recent memory I can recall seeing people, not me mind you, twerking. Now if anything destroys the notion of constraint or confinement of movement by three dimensions, in fact destroys the notion of constraint entirely, it has to be twerking.
The point is that the 'idea' of three dimensions gives us a way of explaining all the possible locations and movements of objects within space. And the only way that anything can exist in this physical reality is if it has three dimensions and, of course, time, if we are to actually observe it. For years theoretical physicists imagined that electrons and quarks were point particles. But, of course, a point is an idea that cannot exist in the physical world. We can represent a point by drawing a dot, but that dot must have some dimension of width, length and breadth, or it would disappear and become a true point, a mental concept that we can all conceive of, but which really doesn't exist. The same is true of a line, which can be represented by a drawn line, but if that drawn line does not have the other two dimensions, has absolutely no width and no depth, it would disappear and become a true line in the only place where true lines exist, our imaginations. The same holds true, of course, for flat. And the same holds true for the 'dimensions' of length, width and breadth. They have no force and they can resist no force. They exist in our minds, and this is a very useful place for them to exist because they help us accurately imagine where and in what shape physical phenomenon are taking place.
If we want to talk about dimensions that have existence and force, it makes much more sense to talk about inward and outward. We live in an expanding and contracting universe. All objects, including our bodies, are part of that. The universe, supposedly, began with a Big Bang. This wasn't an up Bang, or a down Bang, or a side to side Bang. It was an out Bang. The universe expanded. And the Big Bang, supposedly, was preceded by a singularity, an infinitesimal speck within which was contained all the mass of the universe (talk about contraction). Expanding and contracting water create tides and waves and storms. Expanding and contracting air create weather. Expanding and contracting heart muscles create blood circulation. Expanding and contracting intestinal muscles create digestion. Expanding and contracting lungs create respiration. We don't really grow up. We grow out, starting with a tiny egg or seed, and expanding in all directions. We don't really fall down. We fall in. We are being pulled in by the gravitational force, or the inward force of our planet. We also experience, constantly, this expansion and contraction. Often, hopefully, we are in tune with our environment, and are more contracted and active and focused during the day, so that we can accomplish our work and daily activities, and more relaxed and expanded at night so that we can sleep and be good sensitive receptors to the communications that come at us from our loved ones. We have all experienced being too 'tight' to be able to sleep, or to be able to slip into relaxed social conversation. We've also been too expanded, too 'spacey,' so that it's hard to focus, too distracted, with circular thoughts and unable to get our work done or meet our responsibilities in the competent way that we would like.
Although we may be unhappy because our bodies are too long, too short, too wide, too thick, that is our idea of what they should be, and not the dimensions of our bodies exerting their own force. When your stomach is too distended, when your heart is too contracted, when your muscles are too cramped, when your intestines are too tight or too flaccid, you will feel those effects regardless of what your thinking is. Expansion and contraction have force; length, width and depth do not.
So when Greene is talking about these 'extra' dimensions, he is not talking about dimensions at all, at least in the way that we know them. There are no 'length' tubes, or 'width' tubes that encapsulate us. The only limitations on our movements come from the physical structures of our body and gravity, which is really an in force and not a down force. Also, it is not the wind, but the metallic walls of the French horn that are vibrating. Wind instruments are made of metal or wood. The Calabi-Yau models are made from molding clay, or plastic. They have to have some level of sturdiness to withstand the jostling that will happen as they are transported from the manufacturer to the buyer. But what are the 'real' Calabi-Yau shapes made of? The ones that have to withstand not the one time jostling of truckers, but the eternal jostling of the enormous power and vibrations of these strings (enormous in relation to their size). Are they made of dimensions? But, as we've noted, dimensions, by themselves, are ideas, not realities. They have no force and they can resist no force. And without matter, they cannot be separated, one from the other. So the only way this can work is if this twisted, convoluted shape, actually was made of some kind of matter. But the only matter we know of, especially solid matter, especially force resistant matter, are made from atoms containing several protons and neutrons, completely and exponentially dwarfing the size of these filaments, and the little interstitial cubes between points of visibility.
Greene knows of the existence of these subatomic particles, whose origin he is trying to explain, by discrete measurements made within the atom. These measurements are of spin, charge and mass. Spin is measured just outside the periphery of the 'particle' if there is a particle. It measures the velocity and the direction in which the 'particle' is spinning. Charge measures the force, also just beyond the periphery of the 'particle', whether it is an out force (negative) away from the 'particle' or an in force (positive) toward the 'particle.' But what of the particle itself? How is that detected? Well, that would be mass. Mass is equated with matter and matter with mass. The more mass the more matter and the more matter the more mass. But what is mass, actually? It is a measurement of inertia, of how much resistance to acceleration a 'particle' has. If this is accomplished with 'stuff' what kind of stuff would it be, in the center of a subatomic particle, many millions of times smaller than an atom? What if mass is not matter? What if mass is the inward force that pulls in toward the center of what we call a particle?
I know in many diagrams and videos, subatomic particles are represented by brightly colored dots, and that gives the impression that they are some kind of material balls. String theory puts a filament of vibrating energy within that ball. But is there a ball? Is there a material encapsulation of subatomic particles, or of atoms for that matter? No. The shape of a natural object from subatomic particles to atoms to organisms, to planets to stars to galaxies, to the entire universe, is made from the tension between the powerful inward force at the center of the object and the outward, dispersing energy at the periphery of the object. The inward force creates the boundaries, the shape of the object and the outward forces create the dimensions (a useful term to describe how much of space an object occupies) of the object. The stability of the object is created from the stable balance between the inward force pulling in and the outward force pushing out. Particles are not particles at all. They are stable configurations of opposing energy that appear to us, with our nervous and sensory systems, with our cultural educations, as solid objects.
A word about the interstices of space as seen on Greene's diagram in two dimensions on his video and can be seen in three dimensions on many diagrams elsewhere. They do not exist. The notion that space is carved up in these 'objective' invisible cubes comes from the idea that light waves and photons are two different things traveling together. At regular intervals in a moving light wave one comes upon a photon, and since the light sensitive membranes of our eyes translate photons into electrical energy, the spaces where there are no photons (a particle) but only light (a wave) you get these gaps in our vision, which are so tiny no one can notice, hence these tiny cubes of space that cannot be seen and where the supposed ten dimensions and the Calabi-Yau shapes are located.
Light waves and photons are not two different things. They are two different states of the same thing. Light waves are light in its wave form and a photon is light in its particle form. I'll call the outward force yin and the inward force yang. A wave is a yin dominated configuration. It moves very quickly outward. Light speed is the speed of the yin force held back by the tiny stream of yang at its center. Without that tiny central stream, the light wave would have no shape, but disperse through the universe as pure yin. When a light wave encounters a measuring device, a loosely bound electron on the surface of a metal, or a light sensitive membrane, that stream of yang at the center of the wave is attracted by that energy and accumulates at that spot until the yang force is strong enough to pull back the yin waves that are streaming forward and force them to bend back and encircle this accumulation of yang. It becomes a yang dominated configuration with the yin force circling around it. This is what we call a particle, and this particular particle is called a photon. It is either absorbed by the light sensitive membrane or reconfigures instantly back into a wave once it is measured.
The light sensitive membrane of the human eye, of the eye of any creature does not have to 'wait' for an encounter with a photon. The nature of the light sensitive membrane, the energy of it, instantly converts the wave into a photon. There are gaps, but they are due to the amount of time, a tiny, tiny fraction of a second, for the light sensitive membrane to perform molecularly all the functions that need to happen to convert the photon into an electrical impulse, and another split second of time to rearrange itself molecularly to receive the next photon. So this does create tiny gaps in our perception that are unnoticeable. These gaps, however, are not 'objective.' They are not a function of the nature of light, but of the nature of our particular mechanisms of seeing. That means that my gaps are not in perfect synch with your gaps, and with enough viewers, there are no gaps. You overlay a map of my interstices with everyone elses and there are no interstices. Nothing is missed. There are no cubes, no perceptual spaces 'out there' to hide these vibrating filaments and their Calabi-Yau constructions made of immaterial dimensions that behave as if they are made of the most sturdy, durable material.
Oddly, Greene seems to think that if we get the placement and the frequencies of all these energy filaments right, then that will finally and ultimately explain the origin of the universe and the origin of the twenty or so precise numbers necessary for the universe to exist; numbers such as the mass of electrons, the mass of quarks, the strength of gravity and electromagnetism. Supposing this all could be figured out, how could anyone be satisfied with those precise placements and frequencies of filaments as the 'ultimate' answer. Going back to the French horn, yes, the shapes and lengths of the different tubes create different frequencies. But it is the French horn player that is providing the energy that creates all the vibrations, and if it is beautiful, harmonious music that is being created, this is the work of the composer of the music. It is not the pipes of the French horn that create by themselves the music we are enjoying. So too, if string theory were correct, which it obviously is not, but even if it were, it would, at best, provide the dimensions of the instruments that the Creator, the Atman, the Infinite, the Cosmic Consciousness designed so that the energy that the Infinite provides and the rhythm that it provides it in, creates the beauty and the harmony and the functionality of the universe around us.
Monistic dualism, the understanding that the Universe began with one creator and bifurcated into two forces from which came all the phenomena of the world, was the prevalent view in the pre-industrial world of Asia, Africa, the Americas and the Middle East. Among many other names, that one creator was called the Infinite, Allah, the Tao, Hashem, God or the Atman, and the two forces were called Yin and Yang, Heaven and Earth, Tawa and Takpella, In and Yo, Father Sky and Mother Earth, Shiva and Shakti, etc. To get a deeper understanding of this perspective, please read more posts of this blog. Thanks.
As always, your comments are welcome.
