Norman
Allan | ||||
Chapter Six: Strings and the cosmic-mote
Theoretical physicists hope that quantum mechanics and general relativity can be reconciled by modeling the world as vibrating things that behave like strings and membranes. To model the universe as we know it these strings and membranes must be vibrating, not only in the three extended spatial dimensions and in time, i.e. space/time, but also in six "curled up" dimension that are almost infinitesimally small, indeed, as small as can be. The six curled up dimensions, the inward space, may be Calabi-Yau shaped . There are many Calabi-Yau shapes, the above is only one, and no one knows which model matterenergy's inner space . So matter/energy exists in two space/times:on the one hand the common or garden three extended dimensions (3D) of the everyday world (the visible cosmos) along with the everyday time that this space flows through (falls through); and on the other hand there is a "curled up" inner space of six dimensions which is almost infinitesimally small.
Now, just as the vibrating strings and things (matterenergy)
are not in themselves the three extended dimensions (3D) - they vibrate
in the 3 extended dimension - so too the strings and membranes are not
in themselves the six inward dimensions. Rather, they exist in, they vibrate
in these 6 inward dimensions. And just as the three outward dimensions
encompass the universe so too do the six inward dimensions; The inward dimensions are almost infinitesimally small but they are full. The universe exists within them. (I read that the extended dimensions erupt as the "Big Bang" while the inner did not unfold and still resides at the centre, so surely someone must have had this thought...) All matter and energy exists as vibrating strings spatial dispersed in the 3D world. In our space.time universe the strings are tiny, though not dimensionless, points as with the quantum guark. Inwardly too the strings are tiny: however they are of a size comparable to that of the inward "curled up" space itself (approximately "Planks length"). The strings and branes may wind round whole dimensions (several times even). They wind round an inward universe: an inward cosmic mote. The vibrating strings (and membranes) each fills the inward space. All matter/energy coexists and overlaps in the six inwards dimensions! There is an outward and an inner universe. (Actually, the concept of multiple separate inward spaces would be even more boggling. A quadrillion inner little universes and they don't communicate?) The inward space is almost infinitesimally small, but all things vibrate in it. It is almost infinitely full, almost infinitely complex, and in that sense (information-wise) almost infinitely large. But being almost infinitesimally small it take almost no time to traverse. All things are happening virtually instantaneously in the curled inward space. It takes no time to cross. All within it, all matterenergy is instantaneous: yet it overlaps the extended universe and the manifest universe which is billions of light years across (the universe has "a radius of ten billion lightyears"; it is as wide across as there has been time {if we look out into the universe far enough we come to its beginning). So time in the inward space is a very different thing from our outward space/time: in some sense it overlaps all time. (Just as the time, the now of human consciousness extends through several seconds - <see experienced time when I get it on line> - the now of the inward space in some sense encompasses all time, while in another sense, as we spoke of above, the extended universe now is all instantaneous.) The physicists say that there is a sense in which the vibrating things in the curled in space while being almost infinitesimally small are also at the same time almost infinitely large. (Its a reciprocal thing - the physics is the same if they are infinitesimally small or reciprocally almost infinitely large). And meanwhile the fabric of space (outer space and inner space) can be torn (and mended) communicating with what... and in the inner space matter/energy, strings can behave like black hole (communicating with anything?) If everything is vibrating together in the inward space, how are things associated and differentiated? Through resonance. In the inner space frequencies may be incredible high. (In Beyond Substance we saw that homeopathic potentiation generated subharmonic and harmonics and that the high potencies encompassed very low frequencies as found in neural systems, while here in the inner world we have the high frequencies that the mystics speak of. What mediates between the two, the high and low f ? Do the bone's living metacrystals rings the changes? They probably do, so the skull will reflect/transmit/broadcast a high frequency harmony of the brain refrains to both worlds.... In what sense does spatial organization still exist in the inward dimensions? As harmonies, symphonies. repeats:
the physicists now have the energetic strings and membranes fracturing
the fabric of space in the inward dimensions. Space is torn, and repaired,
and thus the energies of our space/time communicate with... with where?
other levels of being? Some (physicists) also posit that each vibrating
thing is also in some sense a "Black Hole".
and somewhere I read that in the M-theories (the vibrating things are not strings! strings are just a first approximation. the vibrating things may be more like membranes) there are 7 "other" dimensions (rather than just the 6 of string) and then again they may open into (was it 11 more again, or 14 15 16) more dimensions: inside, inside, inside... tunneling dimensions
an authoritative site on strings is "String Theory" Stephen Hawking "Universe in a Nutshell" has wonderful illustrations... Timothy Ferris, in "The Whole Shebang" (p.38), writes in passing of the "superstring theory, in which all the particles of matter and energy found in the universe today are said to be scraps of space, created from the shards of a primeval, ten-demensional geometery that shattered when the expansion of the universe began." |