Why not, say, 44 dimensions? I won’t call this short article an explanation, but I did learn something fundamental from it. Thanks to www.politicaltheory.info for the pointer.
Why does string theory have ten or eleven dimensions?
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“but I did learn something fundamental from it.”
What did you learn?
I found Brian Greene’s book the Elegant Universe to be quite
helpful in this regard.
Ah, but the joke was lost is translation… If the number is 42 instead of 44 then it will have great meaning to fans of Douglas Adams.
This is quite similar to the effect of dimensionality in computer algorithms. Most of the really hard problems (i.e. NP-complete and other exponential time algorithms) involve a low number of dimensions, like 3 or 4. If you have to solve a 1,000-dimensional problem, you can use simpler and faster algorithms and have a much better chance of getting a good answer![1] An intuitive explanation for this is that in a high dimensional space, you have so many choices that no matter how bad you next move is, you are unlikely to reach a dead end.
[1] Neil Gershenfeld, The Nature of Mathematical Modeling, “The Blessing of Dimensionality”
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Gravity acting in the hidden dimensions affects other non-gravitational forces such as electromagnetism. In fact, Kaluza’s early work demonstrated that general relativity in five dimensions actually predicts the existence of electromagnetism.
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