Was the Early Universe 2 Dimensional Spacetime?

astroengine writes "According to two theoretical physicists, our current four-dimensional Universe (3 dimensions of space, 1 dimension of time) is actually an evolution from a lower-dimensional state. The early Universe may have existed with just one spatial dimension (plus one time dimension) up until the Universe cooled below an energy state of 100 TeV. At this point, a transition occurred when the spatial dimension "folded" to create 2 dimensions. At 1 TeV, it folded again to create the Universe we know today: 3 dimensions of space, one of time. This may sound like a purely theoretical study, but there might be evidence of the evolution of universal dimensions in cosmic ray measurements and, potentially, in gravitational wave cut-off frequency."

Comments

Physicists

[wed128]

Does anyone else think sometimes that physicists are just coming up with crazier and crazier ideas just to see what we'll buy?

Re:Physicists

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter what one buys or likes. Nature doesn't give a damn about opinions. It's just the way it is and that's it. Either scientists find data to back that hypothesis up and it explains data better than other attempts or not. But whether one finds it crazy or not is completely irrelevant.

Re:Physicists

[underqualified]

Yes.

Wait. Physicists? I thought you were talking about Apple.

Re:Physicists

[Anonymous Coward]

Not far from the truth. You don't even know what big is.

Re:Physicists

[operagost]

Replace "speck" with "turtle" and I'm totally with you.

Re:Physicists

[PopeRatzo]

Well they do get the very best weed available.

"What if we're just a speck on a speck on a speck and that speck stack is like, you know, like, infinite man."

Actually, in my twenty-plus years as an academic, the theoretical physicists I've known and occasionally played cards with are among the most grounded and sensible people. They are not weed-smoking crazies.

If you want to meet the really whacky impractical "crazy-for-the-sake-of-crazy" folks, you have to go to the economics department. Especially since the rise of the contrary-for-no-good-reason "Freakonomics". Those are people who should not be driving cars. They should also not be calling themselves "Science" but that's a discussion for another day.

Re:Physicists

[rubycodez]

In the past 40 years we've discovered crazier and crazier things about the universe. The discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, the discovery that the speed of stars around center of galaxy is nearly uniform (dark matter), CP symmetry violation, multiple quark flavors, irregularities in the cosmic ray background, etc.

Re:Physicists

[AlecC]

Backwards and forwards along the line. Each particle, if such exists, is bouncing back and forward against its neighbour. Or, perhaps more likely, there are no particles, and the universe is one ginormous string twanging along its length with compression waves which along though and interfere with each other. A bit like Gods organ pipe (God's bong?)

Re:Physicists

[AchilleTalon]

You are so wrong and in fact, this hypothesis about the evolution of space-time of the universe is in fact very attractive, even if still an hypothesis. And making sometimes silly looking hypothesis is what we need to make a leap forward. Science history has proven this very well over the centuries.

Anyway, I am starting to believe we are now evolving to a higher dimensional universe with two time dimensions, otherwise how would you explain it is taking twice the time when my girlfiend is saying to me to wait a minute?

Okay, I admit, real geeks don't have girlfriends.

Re:Physicists

[funkelectric]

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. — Albert Einstein

The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize the ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty - some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain. Now, we scientists are used to this, and we take it for granted that it is perfectly consistent to be unsure - that it is possible to live and not know. But I don't know everybody realizes that this is true. Our freedom to doubt was born of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and very strong struggle. Permit us to question - to doubt, that's all - not to be sure. And I think it is important that we do not forget the importance of this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained. — Richard Feynman

Re:Physicists

[Rockoon]

"The difference between microeconomics and macroeconomics is that microeconomics is wrong about specific things, and macroeconomics is wrong about things in general." -Yoram Bauman

Duh...

[Stenchwarrior]

I thought we done with this "theory" crap ever since this guy revealed the truth...

The Cameron Divide

[swrider]

"The Cameron Divide" is the point at which the Universe went from 2D to 3D. "The Lucas Shift" is when it went to being 'far, far, away'.

Re:The Cameron Divide

[pushing-robot]

"The Lucas Shift" is when it went to being 'far, far, away'.

And the acting went from 3D to 2D.

Re:The Cameron Divide

[operagost]

Two entire dimensions of acting? Meesa don't tink so!

Re:The Cameron Divide

[NotSanguine]

guido punched first. I've seen it clearly documented in the historical documents.

Actually it was "Greedo." Contrary to popular belief, Tatooine is *not* near Bensonhurst.

Re:*Whoosh*

[leromarinvit]

The sound of this thing going completely over my head.

Good thing we have three space dimensions now, otherwise it would have gone right into your head.

Re:Its a Tardus.

[sirdude]

TARDIS*

Re:Time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Um no. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime

Nope that's Science Fiction Authors

[Fibe-Piper]

Does anyone else think sometimes that physicists are just coming up with crazier and crazier ideas just to see what we'll buy?

And speaking of which, doesn't this make "foldspace technology" described in Frank Herbert's Dune a bit less fantasy based? The thought is making my mind crinkle!

Re:Nope that's Science Fiction Authors

[Quiet_Desperation]

No, it doesn't sound anything like it. One is a theory about things that happen at Big Bang levels of energy, the other is an author putting the words "space" and "fold" together.

Holographic Principle?

[rmcgehee]

I wonder if this follows from the Holographic Principle, which states that the information from the entire universe scales with area, rather than volume. That is, the information inside our universe is embedded in 2-space, not 3- or 4-space.

The actual article

[Bromskloss]

Please include a link to the work you are reporting on, not just to someone else reporting on someone else's reporting etc. I think this might be the link you are looking for: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.101101

Not the physicists

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not the physicists, its you, along with billions of others. Your grip on reality isn't strong enough to deal with how strange the universe really is, or how limited your perceptions really are.

When the universe was new...

[Anonymous Coward]

When the Universe was new it wasn't 2D, it was text based.

changing dimensions

[PJ6]

This isn't the first theory about the dimensionality of the universe changing over time. A while back it was proposed that time itself is shifting into a spacelike dimension.

Re:Waiting for the 4D

[avgjoe62]

You know, as soon as they finish deploying this new 4D universe, they'll come out with 5D and that'll make 4D obsolete.

Looks like I'm going to have to buy the White Album again...

Re:Time.

[PiSkyHi]

Actually, the URL you posted merely confirms it, check the the General relativity component and you'll find that unless the universe contains completely uniformly mathematically constructed content *and* reference frame together to define space-time, then the dependency of the reference frame's shape upon its content rules out time being a dimension anything like space is.

It cannot be modelled mathematically unless it involves statistics, which physicists hate to admit becasue it means no tractable solutions for real General Relativity problems exist.

Time is no dimension, but if you don't mind a little uncertainty, you can pretend it is.

Not that crazy...

[davevr]

In somewhat plain English:

We might imagine the universe is starting with a very large amount of energy compressed into singularity and then it starts expanding by inflating dimensions. You can assume that there are as many dimensions as you want, but that they are very small; not infinitely small, but small enough so that a complete circuit of the dimension is much smaller than a Planck length. The dimensions are expanding to create a place to put all that energy, so we might expect that one dimension would inflate significantly before it runs out of space - literally - and the next one would start to inflate in earnest. So to expand out and get the three big dimensions we have now, you would naturally pass through a stage where we have 1 and then 2 dimensions. If this happened, we should be able to see the tell-tale signs still imprinted in the make-up of the current universe. For instance, events that happened at very high energies (from early universe), should look today like they all happened in a line or plane instead of in 3D space. That is what the paper is about - more ways to check for this..

BTW, the reason inflation mostly stops after 3 dimensions is that three dimensions is the lowest number of dimensions where randomly distributed items are no longer on top of each other. (e.g., a 1d or 2d random walk will always return to its origin, but in 3D you can get lost for good). You can also hypothesize that a few more dimensions also expanded a little in the process, but not by very much. This is (very) basically what string theory holds.

Many people have trouble understanding the relationship between how many dimensions you have, how much you can hold, and the energy levels involved. Here is a simple thought experiment that anyone can do with just a pen and paper or maybe a string. We will use the paper for space and the string for energy. Draw a 1" line. How long of a piece of string can it "hold"? Only an 1" of course. Now draw a 1"x1" box. How long of a piece of string can it hold? About 1.4", if you stretch it from corner to corner. Now make a 1"x1"x1" box. How long of a piece of string can it hold now?

You can actually stick the Empire State Building into a 1" n-dimensional cube, as long as n is sufficiently large (I think around 225 million should do it... :-) ).