String theory is radically changing our ideas about the nature of space, opening up the possibility that extra dimensions, rips in the fabric of space, and parallel universes actually exist. Strings provide a unified framework for viewing the universe, but for a while, confusingly, there were five different versions of string theory. What physicists thought were five different theories turned out to be five different ways of looking at the same thing. String theory was unified at last. The extra dimension of space required to unify string theory suggests that we may be trapped on just one tiny slice of a higher-dimensional universe. The weakness of gravity compared to the other forces has confounded physicists for decades, but now string theorists believe that gravity may be leaking into parallel universes. The origin of the universe has always been a mysterious event in which the laws of physics appear to break down. Could it be that the big bang was caused by the collision of two parallel universes? The hunt is on for evidence that supports string theory—for example, extra dimensions or supersymmetry. Will string theory turn out to be a dead end? Most string theorists believe that such an elegant and mathematically beautiful idea couldn’t be completely wrong.

The Elegant Universe (3) – Welcome To The 11th Dimension

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