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Did the Early Universe Have One Dimension? That's the mind-boggling concept at the heart of a theory that University at Buffalo physicist Dejan Stojkovic 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 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.
The mystery of the universe's accelerating expansion. 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 need to alter the mass of the Higgs boson. 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.
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.
Originally posted by Larryman
Interesting concept - that new dimensions could appear at any moment, as the universe expands. Something impossible today, could suddenly be possible tomorrow.