Wednesday, April 20, 2011

The One-Dimensional Universe

Here's an article published at physorg.com today about a new scientific theory that suggests our universe started from a point, became a line, then a plane, then 3D space. Hm, where have I heard this before?

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-primordial-weirdness-early-universe-dimension.html

Here's the opening few paragraphs from the article, but please do follow the link to find out more.

Primordial weirdness: Did the early universe have 1 dimension?
April 20, 2011
(PhysOrg.com) -- Did the early universe have just one spatial dimension? That's the mind-boggling concept at the heart of a theory that University at Buffalo physicist Dejan Stojkovic and colleagues proposed in 2010.

They suggested that the early universe -- which exploded from a single point and was very, very small at first -- was one-dimensional (like a straight line) before expanding to include two dimensions (like a plane) and then three (like the world in which we live today).

The theory, if valid, would address important problems in particle physics.

Now, in a new paper in Physical Review Letters, Stojkovic and Loyola Marymount University physicist Jonas Mureika describe a test that could prove or disprove the "vanishing dimensions" hypothesis.

Because it takes time for light and other waves to travel to Earth, telescopes peering out into space can, essentially, look back into time as they probe the universe's outer reaches.

Gravitational waves can't exist in one- or two-dimensional space. So Stojkovic and Mureika have reasoned that the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a planned international gravitational observatory, should not detect any gravitational waves emanating from the lower-dimensional epochs of the early universe.

Cool stuff! Thanks to Lee Price for showing me this article.

Enjoy the journey,

Rob Bryanton

Next: New video - Time Travel Paradoxes

2 comments:

Rod said...

Hi, i found about your work on theatre of the mind podcast, i`ve been facinated about physics and maths for a long time but since an experience i had while meditating i started to also focus on something similar, some ideas you also happened to have ,i just wanted to thankyou for the information on the blog,its just amazing.Mexican fan.

Indigo Roth said...

Hi Rob, over the years I've been intrigued by the idea of us springing from "nothing", but also by the idea of black holes having two ends. I've often wondered whether our set of dimensions might have suddenly come into being as the "output" of a black hole somewhere else? Do you know if this is a concept that has ever been tabled? Thanks, Indigo

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