Warped Passages - Lisa Randall [205]
The mayor to whom Athena referred had arrived accompanied by the Cheshire Fat Cat, his Chief Advisor. The Cat’s job was keeping tabs on everything in the city, which was greatly facilitated by his skill at catching people unawares—especially surprising in light of the Cat’s enormous bulk. The Cat loved to explain that he owed this skill to his ability to disappear into the bulk, but no one ever understood what he meant.*
The Cat materialized next to Athena and asked if she would like to accompany him as he made his rounds. He warned her that she had better be comfortable with bulk, to which Athena eagerly responded that her favorite uncle was in fact very, very fat. The Cat looked skeptical, but agreed to take her along. He offered Athena cream cake with butter frosting, in which she happily indulged. And off they went.
Athena wondered what it was she’d eaten. She now appeared to be on a four-dimensional slice of a five-dimensional world, and as far as she could tell, she was no thicker than this thin four-dimensional slice. She exclaimed, “I am like my paper doll! But whereas Dolly has two spatial dimensions in a three-dimensional world, I have three spatial dimensions in a four-spatial-dimensional world.”
The Cat grinned sagely and explained, “You are now conscious of what I like to call The Bulk. You are still in Branesville, but will be leaving (and growing) momentarily. Branesville is in reality part of a five-dimensional universe, but the fifth dimension is warped so discreetly that Branesville residents are completely unaware of its existence. They have no idea that Branesville is the border of a five-dimensional state. You too mistakenly concluded on your arrival that there are only three spatial dimensions. The new Athena, untethered from the brane, is free to travel out into the fifth dimension. May I suggest for our destination another village called Weakbrane, at the other edge of the five-dimensional universe?”
What a strange five-dimensional journey it turned out to be. After leaving Branesville, Athena found herself moving in another dimension, and growing as she did so (as shown in Figure 85).† When the observant Cat noticed the confused look on Athena’s face, he reassuringly explained, “Weakbrane is close by and we will be there very soon.* It’s lovely, but don’t be alarmed when you see that, like the Branesville residents you encountered, Weakbrane residents scoff at the notion of four spatial dimensions. You, who can see out into the bulk, will see a huge shadow on Branesville, ten million billion times bigger than the one with which you started. Almost everything else will seem to you and to them to be entirely normal.”
Figure 85. Alice got bigger as she moved through the bulk from the Weakbrane to the Gravitybrane.
But upon her arrival in Weakbrane, Athena noticed one other thing. The four-dimensional graviton had quietly accompanied the travelers on their journey and was softly tapping on her shoulder. He touched her so extremely gently that she had barely noticed.†
But she couldn’t ignore the graviton when he launched into a litany of complaints. “Weakbrane would be so exciting, were it not for the superior influence of the entrenched hierarchy. The strong, weak, and electromagnetic armed forces on the Weakbrane permit me only the most feeble strength.” The graviton whined how everywhere else he was a force to be reckoned with, especially in Branesville, which is ruled by an oligarchy with comparably strong forces.* Weakbrane, where gravity was the most suppressed, was the graviton’s least favorite place.† The graviton turned to Athena in the hope of enlisting her in his plan to wrest power from the reigning authorities.
Athena thought she had better leave immediately and looked around for the rabbit hole, but couldn’t find it. She did find a white rabbit, whom she expected to be an efficient guide. But the Weakbrane rabbit had an alarmingly sluggish gait,