Warped Passages - Lisa Randall [8]
James Clerk Maxwell, for example, who developed the classical theory of electricity and magnetism, didn’t believe in the existence of fundamental units of charge such as electrons. George Stoney, who at the end of the nineteenth century proposed the electron as a fundamental unit of charge, didn’t believe that scientists would ever isolate electrons from the atoms of which they are components. (In fact, all it takes is heat or an electric field.) Dmitri Mendeleev, creator of the periodic table, resisted the notion of valence, which his table encoded. Max Planck, who proposed that the energy carried by light was discontinuous, didn’t believe in the reality of the light quanta that were implicit in his own idea. Albert Einstein, who suggested these quanta of light, didn’t know that their mechanical properties would permit them to be identified as particles—the photons we now know them to be. Not everyone with correct new ideas has denied their connection to reality, however. Many ideas, whether believed-in or mistrusted, have turned out to be true.
Is there more waiting to be discovered? For the answer to that question, I turn to the all-too-mortal words of George Gamow, the prominent nuclear physicist and science popularizer. In 1945 he wrote, “Instead of a rather large number of ‘indivisible atoms’ of classical physics, we are now left with only three essentially different entities; nucleons, electrons, and neutrinos…Thus it seems that we have actually hit the bottom in our search for the basic elements from which matter is formed.” When Gamow wrote this, he had no idea that the nucleons are composites of quarks, which would be discovered within thirty years!
Wouldn’t it be strange if we turn out to be the first people for whom the search for further underlying structure ceased to be fruitful? So strange, in fact, that it seems hardly credible? Inconsistencies in existing theories tell us they can’t be the final word. Earlier generations had neither the tools nor the motivations of today’s physicists for exploring the extra-dimensional arenas that this book will describe. Extra dimensions, or whatever underlies the Standard Model of particle physics, would be a discovery of major importance.
When it comes to the world around us, is there any choice but to explore?
1
Entryway Passages: Demystifying Dimensions
You can go your own way.
Go your own way.
Fleetwood Mac
“Ike, I’m not so sure about this story I’m writing. I’m considering adding more dimensions. What do you think of that idea?”
“Athena, your big brother knows very little about fixing stories. But odds are it won’t hurt to add new dimensions. Do you plan to add new characters, or flesh out your current ones some more?”
“Neither; that’s not what I meant. I plan to introduce new dimensions—as in new dimensions of space.”
“You’re kidding, right? You’re going to write about alternative realities—like places where people have alternative spiritual experiences or where they go when they die, or when they have near-death experiences? * I didn’t think you went in for that sort of thing.”
“Come on, Ike. You know I don’t. I’m talking about different spatial dimensions—not different spiritual planes!”
“But how can different spatial dimensions change anything? Why would using paper with different dimensions—11" × 8" instead of 12" × 9", for example—make any difference at all?”
“Stop teasing. That’s not what I’m talking about either. I’m really planning to introduce new dimensions of space, just like the dimensions we see, but along entirely new directions.”
“Dimensions we don’t see? I thought three dimensions is all there are.”
“Hang on, Ike. We’ll soon see about that.”
The word “dimension,” like so many words that describe space or motion through it, has many interpretations—and by now I think I’ve heard them all. Because we see things in spatial pictures we tend to describe many concepts, including time and thought, in spatial terms. This means that many words that apply to space have multiple meanings.