Re: beyond four dimensions

Posted by DickT on August 22, 19101 at 16:59:32:

In Reply to: Re: beyond four dimensions posted by DocN on August 22, 19101 at 14:02:53:

The compacted dimensions would constitute (part of) the String Vacuum, which is as important to String theory as the quantum vacuum is to QFT.

It's important not to think of the 6 dimensions one by one, but rather as one 6-dimensional space, of some particular shape, which is right there beside every point of our 4-D spacetime, if we could only see that small.

The shape is thought to be a twisty pretzel like thing, and the strings can wind around through the "holes". A string that went n-times around some hole couldn't be smoothly deformed into one that went n+1 times around. Since the mass of a string is proportional to its length, the second string would be heavier.

Some theorists have used this to explain the mass spectrum, the fact that all the fermions come in three families, each one heavier than the one before. The quark families can't be transformed into each other by the strong force, which could indicate they are caused by non equivalent winding numbers.

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