what does the eleventh demension have to do with unification theory?

Answer 1

Our current best effort in developing a "Theory of Everything" or a unification theory (unifying the four fundamental forces of nature: gravity, elecromagnetic, strong and weak force) is called "Superstring Theory" (one version of String Theory is called M-Theory), and one of the mathematical consequences of all String Theories is higher spatial dimensions.

Right now, there are discussions of many possible higher spatial dimensions in String Theories. M-Theory happens to predict a total of 11 spacetime dimensions (10 spatial and 1 time). The requirement that there be higher spatial dimensions in String Theory is NOT arbitrary, meaning the physicists did not make it up and insert it into the theory. All they did was make the assumption that the most fundamental unit of matter is actually a vibrating string (or a ribbon in the case of M-Theory) of energy. All our previous physical theories like Maxwell's Electromagnetism and Einstein's Theory of General Relativity had to insert the number of spatial dimensions by hand. They choose 3 spatial dimensions because that's what the Universe "appears" to have. So the number of spatial dimensions has always been a part of the assumptions that physicsts made in developing their theories, but NOT so with String Theory.

Now why does String Theory predict higher spatial dimensions? Well unlike general relativity, string theory allows one to compute the number of spacetime dimensions from first principles. Technically, this happens because for a different number of dimensions, the theory has a "gauge anomaly". This can be understood by noting that in a consistent theory which includes a photon (technically, a particle carrying a force related to an unbroken gauge symmetry), it must be massless. The mass of the photon which is predicted by string theory depends on the energy of the string vibrational mode which represents the photon. This energy includes a contribution from Casimir effect, namely from quantum fluctuations in the string. The size of this contribution depends on the number of dimensions since for a larger number of dimensions, there are more possible fluctuations in the string position. Therefore, the photon will be massless — and the theory consistent — only for a particular number of dimensions.

Answer 2

The eleven dimension (10 space, 1 time) are the only framework in which string theory works or apparently what youcall unification theory. Now since string theory is extremely mathematical, we have to take the word of the guys who actually calculate this stuff and they say that it pops out of the equation. If you've done some math, you know what the expression means, but out of what equation in how ???

Answer 3

Superstring Theory, commonly known as "string theory," explores the supersymmetric properties of matter. One version of string theory proposes that "strings" vibrate through 10 dimensions and appear in our 3 dimensions as leptons (electrons, quarks and neutrinos). The 11th dimension would be the time dimension. Unification theory is something that Einstein tried to do but failed -the theory is that all four forces in the universe (strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, electromagentice force, and gravity) were all the same force when the universe was a fraction of a second old. Einstein was not able to incorporate gravity into his theory. String theory does incorporate gravity, in fact, it wouldn't work without incorporating gravity into its equations. That said, I must point out that nobody is even close to figuring out if string theory is (1) correct and (2) testable.

Answer 4

A set of mathematical equations known as "string theory" or "M theory" seems to offer hope in unifying the four known basic forces of the universe. Many of the equations of M theory require the inclusion of up to eleven dimensions.

Answer 5

Obviously not THE Hawking. You are confusing demented with brilliance.

Answer 6

i duno