by dacapn on Mon Feb 13, 2006 11:21 am
I'd like to emphasize that a model in physics is usually nothing more than a mathematical representation. For things like this, we have no physical intuition about the system and can't truly fathom what happening, we can only construct a mathematical framework. Consider quantum mechanics... Electrons don't REALLY spin, they are a point particle, a point has no orientation. All we know is that they have a magnetic dipole, and that these dipoles move and that it works mathematically to treat them as spinning point particles. Similarly, the physicality of a vibrating string is very meaningless, it is simply an analogy to the mathematical framework being used.
I haven't studied string theory yet, but an aspect of this theory that I find plausible is that we don't appear to live in a 3 dimentional universe. Physically (again with the interpretations and intuitions) we can not fathom any more than 3 spatial dimentions, less is easy, more is impossible. Assuming you already know that the universe is expanding with no apparent center of dilation (all points appear to be the center of expansion)... Here is an example I use to illustrate this:
Living in 1D: You are a point (tough I suppose you could be a line segment too, but being called a "point person" has a good ring to it) on a line and so is everything else in the universe, but you can travel through objects so you're not trapped, don't worry... You are confined to ONLY move on that line, left or right. The universe expands just as I had explained before. Again, impossbile to picture.
Observing 1D from 2D: You are watching a bunch of point people on a line-shaped universe. You decide it would be fun to expand their universe, but not pick any particular point to expand about. You take the ends of their line and connect them, making a ring. Notice that they can't see the ring, objects are the same distance away to them and they can not fathom curvature. You then expand the ring and stretch it like a rubber band. Objects are farther away but still on the line and the point people can't seem to find the center of expansion of the unverse for it lies outside of their universe in another spatial dimention, the center of the ring!
To show that this holds for more spatial dimentions, I'll include a brief version of the classic example. This is in every book on physics that deals with such matters:
Imagine a bunch of circle people living on a large 2D rectangular plane, similarly to the point-people on the line. To expand this universe, we wrap the plane-universe around the surface of a balloon and blow it up. Once again we have a center of expansion outside of the 2D people's known universe.
I didn't intend to write a book but it sure came out that way... Here's hoping someone benefits from this...
DaCapn
(Edit: I suppose I should ammend this as it sounds as though I am incredibly in support of it. I have no personal opinion, but all of my professors seem to think it's outright nonsense, so I tend to side with them because I have a lot of confidence in their judgement.)