Plus.Maths.org
frontiers of physics
Are there parallel universes? In the latest online poll of our Science fiction, science fact project you told us that you'd like an answer to this question. So we spoke to physicists Adrian Kent and David Wallace to find out more. Happy reading!
String theory predicts there are more than the familiar four dimensions of space-time. But where do those extra dimensions come from? Eva Silverstein is looking for the answer.
A bizarre set of of 8-dimensional numbers could explain how to handle string-theory's extra dimensions, why elementary particles come in families of three... and maybe even how spacetime emerges in four dimensions.
Space is three-dimensional... or is it? In fact, we are all used to living in a curved, multidimensional universe. And a mathematical argument might just explain how those higher dimensions are hidden from view.
How many dimensions are there? In the latest online poll of our Science fiction, science fact project you told us that you'd like an answer to this question. So we asked theoretical physicist David Berman to find out more. We also bring you a range of other Plus articles exploring the question, as well as two articles from FQXi who are our partners on this project. Happy reading!
String theory has one very unique consequence that no other theory of physics before has had: it predicts the number of dimensions of space-time. But where are these other dimensions hiding and will we ever observe them?
Does infinity exist? In the latest online poll of our Science fiction, science fact project you told us that you'd like an answer to this question. So we went to speak to cosmologist John D. Barrow to find out more. We also bring you a range of other Plus articles on the subject of infinity, as well as an article from FQXi who are our partners on this project. Happy reading!
Infinity is a pain. Its paradoxes easily ensnare the unsuspecting
reasoner. So over the centuries,
mathematicians have carefully constructed
bulwarks against its predations.
But now cosmologists have developed
theories that put them squarely outside
the mathematicians' "green zone" of
safety.
In the latest poll of our Science fiction, science fact project you told us that you wanted to know if infinity exists. In this interview the cosmologist John D. Barrow gives us an overview on the question, from Aristotle's ideas to Cantor's never-ending tower of mathematical infinities, and from shock waves to black holes.
Quantum mechanics and general relativity are incompatible — and this has led to a decades-long search for a theory of quantum gravity that could combine the two. But the particle physicist Richard Woodard thinks that the mismatch between the two could be nothing more than an illusion, created by the complicated maths techniques used in attempts to unite them.
John Barrow gives us an overview, from Aristotle's ideas to Cantor's never-ending tower of mathematical infinities, and from shock waves to black holes.
A traditional view of science holds that every system — including ourselves — is no more than the sum of its parts. To understand it, all you have to do is take it apart and see what's happening to the smallest constituents. But the mathematician and cosmologist George Ellis disagrees. He believes that complexity can arise from simple components and physical effects can have non-physical causes, opening a door for our free will to make a difference in a physical world.