What would have changed if there were not only three spatial and one temporal dimensions? Imagine, if you can, the ability to move in an additional direction: apart from up and down, north-south, west-east. That there is an independent direction beyond our conventional concepts of the x, y and z axes. And imagine that you are the only one in the world who can access this fourth dimension. Someone in our three-dimensional world would think that you know how to do strange and unusual things that in some way make you godlike:
- you can teleport from one place to another, disappearing in one place and appearing somewhere else;
- you can move or remove internal organs of people, perform operations without opening - the body;
- you can remove anyone from the three-dimensional universe, placing them later in some other place of your choice.
How is this possible? Yes, just like you - a three-dimensional being - interact with a two-dimensional universe.
You will be as godlike as a child with colored pencils or felt-tip pens. From the point of view of our extra (third) spatial dimension, we can climb inside any two-dimensional creature and move it around in its environment without cutting out. We can turn it out, swap right and left. We can take it out of its universe and place it somewhere else.
And if we ourselves, being three-dimensional beings, decide to enter a two-dimensional universe, we will look very strange, since they can only see “two-dimensional slices” of us at a certain moment. Moving from top to bottom along their slice of space:
Promotional video:
- first we will appear as two footprints;
- then two circles will appear;
- these circles will grow until they become ovals;
- then a few more circles (fingers) will appear with them;
- these circles will grow into large circles (arms, hands) along with an oval;
- all this will merge into one large section at the shoulders;
- then it will shrink and disappear with the head.
Fortunately, there are no 4D beings in our universe because they would be indistinguishable from divine beings playing with physics. But what if, instead of being beings of a higher dimension, the universe itself had more dimensions than it does now? It should be noted that this is quite possible. It has been shown that the universe may have had more dimensions in the past.
In the context of general relativity, it is not difficult to construct a spacetime in which the number of "large" (ie macroscopic) dimensions changes over time. Not only could we have a large extra dimension in the past, but also in the future, or in general, we can create a constantly changing space-time in which this number is constantly changing.
The physical consequences of this are incredible: we could have a universe in which a fourth additional spatial dimension appears.
What will it look like? Usually we do not think about it, but four fundamental interactions - gravity, electromagnetism and two nuclear forces - have certain forces and properties, because there are also dimensions that our Universe has. If we decrease or increase the number of dimensions, the arrangement of the lines of the force field will change, for example.
It would be catastrophic if electromagnetism or nuclear forces changed instantly, as atoms or atomic nuclei would decay, change in size, or form a completely disordered structure or related structure (such as people) that depends on them.
Consider an atom in which electrons orbit a charged nucleus or inside an atom in the atomic nucleus itself. The nuclei and the atoms formed from them represent the building blocks for all matter that makes up our world, and they are located on extremely small scales: angstroms for atoms (10-10 meters), femtometers (10-15) for nuclei. If these forces are allowed to “flow out” into another spatial dimension, which they might do when this dimension reaches a sufficiently large size, the laws of forces that govern them will change too.
In general, these forces will have more "space" for propagation, which means that they will weaken faster with the distance traveled if there are more measurements. For nuclei, this change may not be so bad: the size of the nuclei will be slightly larger, the stability of some nuclei will change, they will either become radioactive or stable. This is not so bad. But electromagnetism can be very problematic.
Imagine what would happen if suddenly the forces that bind electrons to nuclei became weaker. If the strength of this interaction changed. You don't think about it, but at the molecular level, the only thing holding you together is the relatively weak bonds between electrons and nuclei. If you change this strength, you change the configurations of everything. Enzymes will denature, proteins will change shape, DNA will not encode the molecules it should encode.
In other words, if the electromagnetic force were to change because this force penetrated a large, fourth dimensional dimension that reached angstroms or so, people's bodies would instantly collapse and die.
But all is not lost. There are many models, mostly inspired by string theory, where these forces, electromagnetic and nuclear, are limited to three dimensions. Then only gravity will be able to move in the fourth dimension. And this means that when the fourth dimension appeared and increased in size (and hence in its effects), gravity began to “flow away” into this additional dimension. And, therefore, objects will experience less attraction than we are used to.
This would lead to a number of strange signs.
First, the asteroids - which are spinning tightly locked together - will crumble as there isn't enough gravity to hold these rocks and rocks. Comets, coming close to the Sun, will evaporate faster and acquire impressive tails. And if the fourth dimension grows large enough, the gravitational forces on Earth will seriously decrease, and our planet will become larger, especially at the equator.
People living at the poles will feel the decrease in gravity, and people living at the equator risk being thrown into space. At the macro level, Newton's famous law of gravitation - the inverse square law - will suddenly become the law of inverse cubes, so that gravity will significantly weaken as distance increases.
If the dimension were to increase to the size of the distance from the Earth to the Sun, virtually everything in our solar system would become disconnected. If this continued for more than a few days a year - even if gravity returned to normal after 50 weeks - our solar system would completely collapse in just a hundred years.
We would have periods on Earth when we would not only be able to move in an "additional" direction through spaces, in addition to back and forth, up and down, right and left, but also when the properties of gravity would change greatly and not for the better … While high jump and long jump competition would be amazing, the consequences for our stable system would be apocalyptic.
The extra dimension, as long as it remains on a small enough scale, will be almost invisible, especially if electromagnetism remains limited to our three dimensions. But allow the fourth dimensional dimension to grow big enough for us to move through it … And then the planet itself, stars, galaxies and the entire universe will be threatened. Even a very short time spent in this dimension will be unlike anything. Be careful what you wish for.
ILYA KHEL