Did the Early Universe Have Just One Dimension?
[/caption]
From a University of Buffalo press release:
Did the early universe have just one spatial dimension? That’s the mind-boggling concept at the heart of a theory that physicist Dejan Stojkovic from the University at Buffalo and colleagues proposed in 2010. They suggested that the early universe — which exploded from a single point and was very, very small at first — was one-dimensional (like a straight line) before expanding to include two dimensions (like a plane) and then three (like the world in which we live today).
The theory, if valid, would address important problems in particle physics.
Now, in a new paper in Physical Review Letters, Stojkovic and Loyola Marymount University physicist Jonas Mureika describe a test that could prove or disprove the “vanishing dimensions” hypothesis.
Because it takes time for light and other waves to travel to Earth, telescopes peering out into space can, essentially, look back into time as they probe the universe’s outer reaches.
Gravitational waves can’t exist in one- or two-dimensional space. So Stojkovic and Mureika have reasoned that the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a planned international gravitational observatory, should not detect any gravitational waves emanating from the lower-dimensional epochs of the early universe.
Stojkovic, an assistant professor of physics, says the theory of evolving dimensions represents a radical shift from the way we think about the cosmos — about how our universe came to be.
The core idea is that the dimensionality of space depends on the size of the space we’re observing, with smaller spaces associated with fewer dimensions. That means that a fourth dimension will open up — if it hasn’t already — as the universe continues to expand.
The theory also suggests that space has fewer dimensions at very high energies of the kind associated with the early, post-big bang universe.
If Stojkovic and his colleagues are right, they will be helping to address fundamental problems with the standard model of particle physics, including the following:
The incompatibility between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Quantum mechanics and general relativity are mathematical frameworks that describe the physics of the universe. Quantum mechanics is good at describing the universe at very small scales, while relativity is good at describing the universe at large scales. Currently, the two theories are considered incompatible; but if the universe, at its smallest levels, had fewer dimensions, mathematical discrepancies between the two frameworks would disappear.
Physicists have observed that the expansion of the universe is speeding up, and they don’t know why. The addition of new dimensions as the universe grows would explain this acceleration. (Stojkovic says a fourth dimension may have already opened at large, cosmological scales.)
The standard model of particle physics predicts the existence of an as yet undiscovered elementary particle called the Higgs boson. For equations in the standard model to accurately describe the observed physics of the real world, however, researchers must artificially adjust the mass of the Higgs boson for interactions between particles that take place at high energies. If space has fewer dimensions at high energies, the need for this kind of “tuning” disappears.
“What we’re proposing here is a shift in paradigm,” Stojkovic said. “Physicists have struggled with the same problems for 10, 20, 30 years, and straight-forward extensions of the existing ideas are unlikely to solve them.”
“We have to take into account the possibility that something is systematically wrong with our ideas,” he continued. “We need something radical and new, and this is something radical and new.”
Because the planned deployment of LISA is still years away, it may be a long time before Stojkovic and his colleagues are able to test their ideas this way.
However, some experimental evidence already points to the possible existence of lower-dimensional space.
Specifically, scientists have observed that the main energy flux of cosmic ray particles with energies exceeding 1 teraelectron volt — the kind of high energy associated with the very early universe — are aligned along a two-dimensional plane.
If high energies do correspond with lower-dimensional space, as the “vanishing dimensions” theory proposes, researchers working with the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator in Europe should see planar scattering at such energies.
Stojkovic says the observation of such events would be “a very exciting, independent test of our proposed ideas.”
Sources: EurekAlert, Physical Review Letters.
By Related posts
A very interesting concept.
Who say 3 spatial and 1 temporal dimensions is how we started or how we will end, more dimensions for the people
but well if you follow string theory there is like 11-26 dimensions and i have no idea what they all do but the 4 dimensions i am aware off i love.
very mind boggling to comprehend but fairly logical in a way.
There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone.
Another ridiculous idea, I think a lot of the time Physicists just need something to do/think about in order to justify grants etc. This will undoubtably come to nothing.
He talks about the need to stop extensions upon extensions of ideas and this is exactly what this nonsense is.
10’ll get you 100, all they read was the headline and formed their entire hypothesis based on that. (as they sounded as though they are someone that neither likes nor understands science in general, I doubt they even WANTED to know what the idea was about, let alone would be able to understand [or even want to] what is being described)
I agree with your assessment here, Viljuri, we need more to chew on before we spit the fat into the fire, therein a light blossoms from our efforts.
It might be the latter idea you toss out there, it might be ‘degrees of freedom’ or even something enticingly ‘new’.
Mike C
The article states that they DID form a testable hypothesis and are waiting for LISA to launch in order to test it, no?
* Waiting for LBC to chime in on this.*
Weird, wild stuff!
@LC
Chiming in here since you brought up Escher Circle Limits:
I loved the paper by Melissa Potter and Jason M. Ribando in 2003/4. So much history and so much practicably demonstration within that paper. Of course it is not the math part they dwell upon but the physical construction of these non-Euclidean figures of Escher, this is almost as fascinating as a snake and bird dance.
Isometries, Tessellations and Escher, Oh My! found at
http://www.uni.edu/ajur/v3n4/Potter%20and%20Ribando%20pp%2021-28.pdf
Mike C
@Mike: Gravity waves do not have dispersion like electromagnetic waves do. Any form of matter they encounter is equivalent, no matter its composition.
LC
Am i right to understand that this theory suggests that the observed increasing expansion rate is actually an optical illusion stemming from the projection of the large scale 4 dimension space on our familiar 3 dimensions?
JJ
@JJ: In a word, no. Perhaps you should (re)read the article which clearly posits that the rapid expansion of the universe may be explained by the addition of new dimensions, and hypothesize that a fourth dimension may already exist at large cosmological scales. Even with my limited exposure to physics I was able to extract this much in the way of an explanation. Optical illusions play no part in the matter.
Though the subject matter is a bit beyond my ken, the (short) paper by Mureika and Stojkovic was an interesting read: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1102/1102.3434v2.pdf
However, a paper critical of this work has been posted: (http)://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1104/1104.1223v1.pdf
From the paper:
“It has been recently claimed that quantum gravity models where the number of dimensions reduces at the ultraviolet exhibit a potentially observable cutoff in the primordial gravitational wave spectrum, and that this is a “generic” and “robust” test for such models, since “(2+1)-dimensional spacetimes have no gravitational degrees of freedom”. We argue that such a claim is misleading.”
Are they on to something?
In reading their paper I too find myself on the skeptical side.
LC
Well, haste: “4 spacetime dimensioned systems” should be “4 large scale dimensions” (for space).
Q: What is the meaning an origin of the zeroth dimension, here?
Does it have any real meaning if it somehow it manifests one dimension (then onto multiple ones)?
Oh brother! I can just hear it coming … dark dimensions!
I am just waiting for the EU dimensions and Plasma Dimensions, they are bound to come at one point or another
.
Avid Reader, never posted before
Just had to express my feelings after reading these comments…
Gosh there are some smart people on this site…
To the SYSTEM GALAXIES Big Bang is SERIOUSLY WRONG SCIENCE. They talk in terms of Star Plasma and moving it about within their System Galaxies safely.
Big Bang and evolution as sciences are used,with certain other locks as a POWER LOCK OUT.
Text cut and withheld.
<<>>
maybe we still ARE in a 1 dimensional dimension and our 1d brains fool us in thinking that there are 3 dimentions out there but in fact we are trapped, trapped in a very tiny 1d box….ahhhhhhh
The article states that smaller spaces are associated with fewer dimensions. What does that mean at the Planck Scale?