Extra dimensions and atomic binding forces

[Jeff7]

Might be a totally stupid theory, as I can't say I'm an expert in either subatomic behavior or extra dimensions.
I do recall reading that, if there are extra dimensions, they're coiled up into really tiny spaces. Something times 10^-31 comes to mind.
A thought came that might be totally meaningless, but I figured I'd put it out somewhere. Atomic binding forces, like those within the nucleus of an atom - what if they are the result of extra dimensions? Gravity might behave very differently in these extra dimensions, and since they're tiny, the effect might be concentrated, and strong enough to keep the subatomic particles bound together.

That might as well be gibberish, or it might not. Comments? Suggestions? Just the ramblings of a madman?

I had another passing though too, based partly on the book Flatland. Suppose there are extra dimensions - what if all we see is merely the protrusion into our realm of objects in these other dimensions? Like protons - the tiny 11th dimension has these objects, but only a wee little bit pokes through to our reality. They might be interacting within their home dimension in ways we can't yet perceive.

 

[MrDudeMan]

very interesting thoughts...

i am also very curious what makes the nuclear strong force a real thing. i dont like the answer that we will never be able to see inside the atom or know what it is made out of. there has to be a way to keep discovering the smaller parts of each piece. maybe that is just hope speaking though.

 

[CycloWizard]

I do recall reading that, if there are extra dimensions, they're coiled up into really tiny spaces.

Well, I'm no physicist, but I'm pretty confident that this is incorrect. Here's why. The three dimensions that we perceive now make up 'space' as we know it. The fourth is time. These four dimensions are called 'space-time' collectively. You can't say that time takes up X amount of 'space', as it's a different dimension. Each dimension is independent of the others, thus it can't be measured in the other dimensions. Thus, trying to quantify the fifth (or higher) dimensions in terms of 'space' is inherently meaningless, like me looking at my watch to determine my shoe size.

 

[silverpig]

That is an idea yes, and is the basis of string theory. Gravity would be the only force affected by these other dimensions though, as all the other force carriers are open loop strings bound to our 3+1-dimensional D-brane, whereas gravitons are closed loop strings not bound to any D-brane. It may be a testable phenomena with the new LHC at CERN.

And the strong nuclear force is a real thing. We can "see" it with particle accelerators quite well and know its effects very well. 🙂

 

[MrDudeMan]

is time really the "fourth" dimension? i dont see how it qualifies. you can translate any direction you want in the other 3 dimensions, but in time it is only 1 direction. it is a measurement, not a dimension.

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: Bigsm00th
is time really the "fourth" dimension? i dont see how it qualifies. you can translate any direction you want in the other 3 dimensions, but in time it is only 1 direction. it is a measurement, not a dimension.

Sure it can... if I want to give the coordinates of the location of a moving object, I have to give you an x, y, z, and a time it's at that point - the 4th coordinate.

 

[Soccerman06]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

I do recall reading that, if there are extra dimensions, they're coiled up into really tiny spaces.

Well, I'm no physicist, but I'm pretty confident that this is incorrect. Here's why. The three dimensions that we perceive now make up 'space' as we know it. The fourth is time. These four dimensions are called 'space-time' collectively. You can't say that time takes up X amount of 'space', as it's a different dimension. Each dimension is independent of the others, thus it can't be measured in the other dimensions. Thus, trying to quantify the fifth (or higher) dimensions in terms of 'space' is inherently meaningless, like me looking at my watch to determine my shoe size.

wrong. the dimensions that we know of go in order like this :
1) A plane
2) 2 planes crossing perpendicular (2D)
3) 3rd plane crossing the other perpendicular (3D)
4) Gravity
5) Time
6-11) String Theory Dimensions- There are 6 seperate theories that all work together but seperate to create different dimensions. We do not know which one is right because they all work and there could actually be more if another smart person comes alone and finds a 7th way to write String Theory. String Theory is basically thought as you start at one point, and could end up anywhere a mm away (dont think distance is relative) from origin. It can be very confusing, so think of it this way, you have a bunch of strings grouped into 1 spot. You pick a string (your starting point) and follow the string along the path (you cant move the string or take it out, but just imagine your going through the middle of it) until you get to the end of the string (end point). This end point could be anywhere in the clump of strings, kind of like a worm hole where you enter one point and exit out another but at a random spot in the universe, but you might have only moved a fraction of a mm (distance is irrelavent). We cannot see String Theory as of yet because we dont have any tech that is able to detech the strands (hence String) at the sub-sub atomic level, or quork/groun (spelling) level.

Im sorry, String Theory is complicated until your learn the theory behind it, then its quite simple (in general terms). I guess the best example is the worm hole idea but that has to do with gravity and a link through space-time, not String Theory as far as I know.

Edit: I believe Nova has a 3 hour movie thing about String Theory and General Relativity and concering the large and small forces, 4 in all; gravity-big force, electromagnitism radiation and one other I forgot-small force.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: Bigsm00th
is time really the "fourth" dimension? i dont see how it qualifies. you can translate any direction you want in the other 3 dimensions, but in time it is only 1 direction. it is a measurement, not a dimension.

Sure it can... if I want to give the coordinates of the location of a moving object, I have to give you an x, y, z, and a time it's at that point - the 4th coordinate.

good point, but it still seems weird to me since you cant go backward in that coordinate system. in the other dimensions you can go back to where you came from and nothing will have changed. if you take 5 steps forward and go back 5 steps, your time isnt the same, it doubled. thats why i have trouble grasping this.

 

[PowerEngineer]

Sounds like you may have been half-wake when NOVA was showing The Elegant Universe, because your jibberish sounds like bits and pieces of string theory.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Soccerman06
wrong. the dimensions that we know of go in order like this :
1) A plane
2) 2 planes crossing perpendicular (2D)
3) 3rd plane crossing the other perpendicular (3D)
4) Gravity
5) Time

Do you have a reference for this? I've never heard gravity described as its own dimension, but I've commonly heard that time is the fourth dimension (not like the order even matters, but this is what you're calling me on). Like I said, I'm no physicist, but I try to keep abreast of the latest discussion and I'm pretty sure I would have heard at least something to that effect.

 

[Soccerman06]

Originally posted by: PowerEngineer

Sounds like you may have been half-wake when NOVA was showing The Elegant Universe, because your facts sounds like bits and pieces of string theory.

fixed

it is, and I havent seen it in like a year, and was at 3 AM

Edit: ya thats the show I was thinkin of. And I didnt want to say 3 hours worth of show into this post 🙂 maybe next time.

 

[sonz70]

Why do they count time as a dimension? is it because of Time dialation? or am I totally off here.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Soccerman06

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

I do recall reading that, if there are extra dimensions, they're coiled up into really tiny spaces.

Well, I'm no physicist, but I'm pretty confident that this is incorrect. Here's why. The three dimensions that we perceive now make up 'space' as we know it. The fourth is time. These four dimensions are called 'space-time' collectively. You can't say that time takes up X amount of 'space', as it's a different dimension. Each dimension is independent of the others, thus it can't be measured in the other dimensions. Thus, trying to quantify the fifth (or higher) dimensions in terms of 'space' is inherently meaningless, like me looking at my watch to determine my shoe size.

wrong. the dimensions that we know of go in order like this :
1) A plane
2) 2 planes crossing perpendicular (2D)
3) 3rd plane crossing the other perpendicular (3D)
4) Gravity
5) Time
6-11) String Theory Dimensions- There are 6 seperate theories that all work together but seperate to create different dimensions. We do not know which one is right because they all work and there could actually be more if another smart person comes alone and finds a 7th way to write String Theory. String Theory is basically thought as you start at one point, and could end up anywhere a mm away (dont think distance is relative) from origin. It can be very confusing, so think of it this way, you have a bunch of strings grouped into 1 spot. You pick a string (your starting point) and follow the string along the path (you cant move the string or take it out, but just imagine your going through the middle of it) until you get to the end of the string (end point). This end point could be anywhere in the clump of strings, kind of like a worm hole where you enter one point and exit out another but at a random spot in the universe, but you might have only moved a fraction of a mm (distance is irrelavent). We cannot see String Theory as of yet because we dont have any tech that is able to detech the strands (hence String) at the sub-sub atomic level, or quork/groun (spelling) level.

Im sorry, String Theory is complicated until your learn the theory behind it, then its quite simple (in general terms). I guess the best example is the worm hole idea but that has to do with gravity and a link through space-time, not String Theory as far as I know.

Edit: I believe Nova has a 3 hour movie thing about String Theory and General Relativity and concering the large and small forces, 4 in all; gravity-big force, electromagnitism radiation and one other I forgot-small force.

That's well off...

Gravity is NOT a dimension.

Time is not a spatial dimension.

You can set up situations where I believe entropy is a dimension, but that's only useful in a thermodynamics situation, and is really just a curiousity... it's not physical.

String theory has 11 dimensions. There is only 1 string theory now (the 3 different versions were unified with the invention of branes). The 11 string theory dimensions are all spatial, with 3 macroscopic dimensions (x,y,z) and 8 curled up dimensions.

And a plane is 2 dimensional. You can't have a one dimesional plane (it'd be a line).

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: Bigsm00th

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: Bigsm00th
is time really the "fourth" dimension? i dont see how it qualifies. you can translate any direction you want in the other 3 dimensions, but in time it is only 1 direction. it is a measurement, not a dimension.

Sure it can... if I want to give the coordinates of the location of a moving object, I have to give you an x, y, z, and a time it's at that point - the 4th coordinate.

good point, but it still seems weird to me since you cant go backward in that coordinate system. in the other dimensions you can go back to where you came from and nothing will have changed. if you take 5 steps forward and go back 5 steps, your time isnt the same, it doubled. thats why i have trouble grasping this.

Sure, I can go backwards in time when describing the location of something....

Starting bottom right corner of my file cabinet, the location of my pen was
3 feet left, 30 inches up, 6 feet over, 25 minutes ago.
It's not there now.

(edit: I'm not necessarily claiming that time is one of the necessary dimensions, only that I can use it as such, and can use both positive and negative values.)

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Bigsm00th
is time really the "fourth" dimension? i dont see how it qualifies. you can translate any direction you want in the other 3 dimensions, but in time it is only 1 direction. it is a measurement, not a dimension.

Well, think to the book Flatland if you ever read it. A sphere passes through Flatland. To the inhabitants, it looks like a point, then a circle, which gets larger, then smaller, then a point, and it's gone. Where did it go? There is no other dimension to the 2D things in Flatland. It just appears, grows, shrinks, and is gone again. There would be no term to describe up and down, and thus no simple way of explaining these concepts. Similar with time and other dimensions.

Originally posted by: PowerEngineer

Sounds like you may have been half-wake when NOVA was showing The Elegant Universe, because your jibberish sounds like bits and pieces of string theory.

My jibberish or someone else's? 🙂
I unfortunately have never seen NOVA. It sounds interesting.

A bit of the theory we got in Physics II in high school (which included nuclear and quantum physics) said that, if you enter a wormhole whose exit point was a light year away, and you'd enter in year 2001, you'd exit in 2000 far away. I think that was the gist of it. Theoretical, obviously.