Thread: the microscopic dimensions

could anyone point me to a source that describes what the microscopic dimensions predicted by string or M-theory actually are?

My suspicion is that these can only be properly described in mathematics. If your maths sucks, then verbal explanations using analogies won't really cut it. I always fall back on the observation by J.B.S.Haldane: "The Universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we can imagine."

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

My suspicion is that these can only be properly described in mathematics. If your maths sucks, then verbal explanations using analogies won't really cut it. I always fall back on the observation by J.B.S.Haldane: "The Universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we can imagine."

Do you believe it will ever be possible to describe these dimensions, or even subatomic "particles", by way of verbal explanations as well as by mathematical descriptions?
I find it difficult to accept that we will never be able to describe the structure of such objects in words.

Well the analogy I've heard is picture an ant on a string. There's one long dimension that we can all easily see, the ant walking back and forth across the string. There's also a much smaller, curled up dimension where the ant walks around the string itself, not along it, and ends up back where it started in no time at all. That's analogous to the small curled-up dimensions in string theory. Using that analogy it's not really that far-feteched to imagine that it could be true.

Originally Posted by Neutrino

Well the analogy I've heard is picture an ant on a string. There's one long dimension that we can all easily see, the ant walking back and forth across the string. There's also a much smaller, curled up dimension where the ant walks around the string itself, not along it, and ends up back where it started in no time at all. That's analogous to the small curled-up dimensions in string theory. Using that analogy it's not really that far-feteched to imagine that it could be true.

Another well-known analogy is the visualisation of the atom as a miniature solar system but this picture,altho' useful,is not an accurate picture of reality.
However I do feel reluctant to believe what I read in a science magazine,ages ago,where the writer declared there were no words, in any language, that could adequately describe objects such as quarks,photons and electrons.
I admit I would like to know what a sub-atomic particle is like and also what,if anything,happened before the BB. This probably explains why I would never have made a scientist!

pictures says more than 1000 words.
http://www.tenthdimension.com/medialinks.php

here you go. start imagining.