Super strings existing in as many dimensions as 11. Credit: National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli.

Since I was in High school, I have believed that Physics is an important factor in life. Most human activities in several fields such as engineering, information technology, electronics, geology and others will run well if they are cited in a good physics framework. This circumstance stimulated me to attend faculty of physics. I chose Physics as my major area of specialization at the university because the Physics degree holders not only have many opportunities but are also cited as important scholars in their societies.

During my high school, I was told that the earth is three (3) dimensional, which means that there are simply three different facets of what we perceive to be reality. The three dimensions of all objects in the universe were defined as the length, width, and depth—called the x, y, and z-axes, respectively.

At the university, I was made to believe that there exists a fourth dimension, time, which governs the properties of all known matter at any given point. This was quite easy to understand because knowing the position of any object in time, along with the three other dimensions, makes it possible to plot the object’s position in the universe.

In my final undergraduate year, I heard our astronomy professor mention a term “Superstring theory”. I was inquisitive to know more, only to be warned that this physics theory is controversial and hard to understand. To break it down, he said that the Superstring theory is based on supersymmetry and attempts to explain every particle and force in the universe in one theory by modelling particles as vibrations of tiny supersymmetric strings in 11 dimensions. Trust me, even after this simple explanation, I couldn’t figure out the “madness” in physics.

The Superstring theory therefore helps to explain the other dimensions, but it remains a tricky concept for physicists to explain because there is lack of experimental evidence to explain the interactions of the higher dimensions with the four obvious ones mentioned above. Let me briefly give an insight into the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth dimension in accordance to Superstring theory, as explained by Matt Williams.

The fifth and sixth dimensions are where the notion of possible worlds arises. If we could see on through to the fifth dimension, we would see a world slightly different from our own that would give us a means of measuring the similarity and differences between our world and other possible ones.

In thesixth, we would see a plane of possible worlds, where we could compare and position all the possible universes that start with the same initial conditions as this one (i.e. the Big Bang). In theory, if you could master the fifth and sixth dimension, you could travel back in time or go to different futures.

In the seventh dimension, you have access to the possible worlds that start with different initial conditions. Whereas in the fifth and sixth, the initial conditions were the same and subsequent actions were different, here, everything is different from the very beginning of time.

The eighth dimension again gives us a plane of such possible universe histories, each of which begins with different initial conditions and branches out infinitely (hence why they are called infinities).

In the ninth dimension, we can compare all the possible universe histories, starting with all the different possible laws of physics and initial conditions. In the tenth and final dimension, we arrive at the point in which everything possible and imaginable is covered.

Beyond this, nothing can be imagined by us lowly mortals, which makes it the natural limitation of what we can conceive in terms of dimensions. However, it is believed that there exists an eleventh dimension.

The fact that we can perceive only four dimensions can be explained by one of two mechanisms: either the extra dimensions exists on a very small scale, or else our world lives on a 3-dimensional sub manifold corresponding to a brane, on which all known particles besides gravity would be restricted.

To summarise, we may not easily trivialise the other six/seven dimensions, but they help to explain how all known forces within our universe interact, and how other possible universes themselves might work. Indeed, they play a role in the ordering of our Universe.

Give your view in the comment line!