Susskind was arguing that if the mathematics does not identify one particular shape as the right one for the extra dimensions, perhaps there isn’t a single right shape. That is, maybe all of the shapes are right shapes in the sense that there are many universes, each with a different shape for the extra dimensions. Our universe would then be just one of a vast collection, each with detailed features determined by the shape of their extra dimensions. Why, then, are we in this universe instead of any other? Because the shape of the hidden dimensions yields the spectrum of physical features that allow us to exist. In another universe, for example, the different shape might make the electron a little heavier or the nuclear force a little weaker, shifts that would cause the quantum processes that power stars, including our sun, to halt, interrupting the relentless march toward life on Earth. Radical though this proposal may be, it was supported by parallel developments in cosmological thinking that suggested that the Big Bang may not have been a unique event, but was instead one of innumerable bangs spawning innumerable expanding universes, called the multiverse. Susskind was suggesting that string theory augments this grand cosmological unfolding by adorning each of the universes in the multiverse with a different shape for the extra dimensions. With or without string theory, the multiverse is a highly controversial schema, and deservedly so. It not only recasts the landscape of reality, but shifts the scientific goal posts. Questions once deemed profoundly puzzling—why do nature’s numbers, from particle masses to force strengths to the energy suffusing space, have the particular values they do?—would be answered with a shrug. The detailed features we observe would no longer be universal truths; instead, they’d be local bylaws dictated by the particular shape of the extra dimensions in our corner of the multiverse. Most physicists, string theorists among them, agree that the multiverse is an option of last resort. Yet, the history of science has also convinced us to not dismiss ideas merely because they run counter to expectation. If we had, our most successful theory, quantum mechanics, which describes a reality governed by wholly peculiar waves of probability, would be buried in the trash bin of physics. As Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg has said, the universe doesn’t care about what makes theoretical physicists happy.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 21:30:35 +0000
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