Physicists aren’t known for playing fast and loose with the rules of reality. But when it comes to the concept of space, some take a remarkably permissive attitude. For most of us, it would seem there are just three dimensions of space.
Yet string theory, for instance, postulates there are at least nine. The same attitudes don’t tend to apply to time. For almost all physicists, time has just one dimension, period.
Yet some dare to wonder if there might be more to time than meets the eye. It is a dangerous game – mess with time, and you can end up scrambling the laws of cause and effect. But then again, we know physics has plenty of problems.
Maybe a drastic step is exactly what is needed to solve them? And with his ideas and those of others now hinting at what might lie inside black holes and even suggesting a possible solution to one of the biggest mysteries in quantum mechanics, perhaps this wild idea deserves the time of day. The universe could vanish at any moment – why hasn’t it?
The edifice of modern physics is supported by two great pillars. Quantum theory describes the world of particles and three of the four fundamental forces, while general relativity explains the remaining force, gravity, as the curvature of space-time. Yet nearly every deep problem in physics is a crack along the same fault line: these theories paint incompatible pictures of how reality works.
Broadly speaking, physicists suspect a deeper picture underlies both theories. Trying to work out what that is has led them to ideas like string theory, with its many extra dimensions of space. But few think we are anywhere near the true answers yet.
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