The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene [105]
Although Kaluza's 1919 suggestion that our universe might have more spatial dimensions than those of which we are directly aware was a remarkable possibility in its own right, something else really made it compelling. Einstein had formulated general relativity in the familiar setting of a universe with three spatial dimensions and one time dimension. The mathematical formalism of his theory, however, could be extended fairly directly to write down analogous equations for a universe with additional space dimensions. Under the "modest" assumption of one extra space dimension, Kaluza carried out the mathematical analysis and explicitly derived the new equations.
He found that in the revised formulation the equations pertaining to the three ordinary dimensions were essentially identical to Einstein's. But because he included an extra space dimension, not surprisingly Kaluza found extra equations beyond those Einstein originally derived. After studying the extra equations associated with the new dimension, Kaluza realized that something amazing was going on. The extra equations were none other than those Maxwell had written down in the 1880s for describing the electromagnetic force! By adding another space dimension, Kaluza had united Einstein's theory of gravity with Maxwell's theory of light.
Before Kaluza's suggestion, gravity and electromagnetism were thought of as two unrelated forces; nothing had even hinted that there might be a relation between them. By having the bold creativity to imagine that our universe has an additional space dimension, Kaluza suggested that there was a deep connection, indeed. His theory argued that both gravity and electromagnetism are associated with ripples in the fabric of space. Gravity is carried by ripples in the familiar three space dimensions, while electromagnetism is carried by ripples involving the new, curled-up dimension.
Kaluza sent his paper to Einstein, and at first Einstein was quite intrigued. On April 21, 1919, Einstein wrote back to Kaluza and told him that it had never occurred to him that unification might be achieved "through a five-dimensional [four space and one time] cylinder-world." He added, "At first glance, I like your idea enormously."4 About a week later, though, Einstein wrote Kaluza again, this time with some skepticism: "I have read through your paper and find it really interesting. Nowhere, so far, can I see an impossibility. On the other hand, I have to admit that the arguments brought forward so far do not appear convincing enough."5 But then, on October 14, 1921, more than two years later, Einstein wrote to Kaluza again, having had time to digest Kaluza's novel approach more fully: "I am having second thoughts about having restrained you from publishing your idea on a unification of gravitation and electricity two years ago. . .. If you wish, I shall present your paper to the academy after all."6 Belatedly, Kaluza had received the master's stamp of approval.
Although it was a beautiful idea, subsequent detailed study of Kaluza's proposal, augmented by Klein's contributions, showed that it was in serious conflict with experimental data. The simplest attempts to incorporate the electron into the theory predicted relations between its mass and its charge that were vastly different from their measured values. Because there did not seem to be any obvious way of getting around this problem, many of the physicists who had taken notice of Kaluza's idea lost interest. Einstein and others continued, now and then, to dabble with the possibility of extra curled-up dimensions, but it quickly came to be an enterprise on the outskirts of theoretical physics.
In a real sense, Kaluza's idea was way ahead of its time. The 1920s marked the start of a bull market for theoretical and experimental physics concerned with understanding the basic laws of the microworld. Theorists had their hands full as they sought to develop the structure of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. Experimentalists had the detailed properties of the atom as well as numerous other