Maximum Number Of Dimensions Of Space Time

[petrushkagoogol]

A current theory states that naked singularities exist outside the event horizon of a black hole which are curled up into 5 dimensions.

 

String theory on the other hand envisages strings vibrating in 11 dimensions.

 

What if any, is the cap on the maximum number of dimensions that space time can be warped into ? 

[A-wal]

248 is the most I know of in Garrett Lisi's An Exceptionally Simple Theory Of Everything

[CraigD]

A current theory states that naked singularities exist outside the event horizon of a black hole which are curled up into 5 dimensions.

What theory is that, Petrushka? Got a link to it?

 

<standing_on_soapbox>

Though we don’t do a very good job of indoctrinating people in it, the “hypo” in “hypography” comes from hyperlink. Back 15 years ago when the web (and the folk filling it with content) was younger, hypography was born from the idea of a broad-topic science forum rich with hyperlinks making clear explanation of ideas just a click away for readers. While internet culture didn’t follow that dream, I implore everyone to put as many links in your posts as you sensibly can, keeping the hypo in hypography!

</standing_on_soapbox>

 

248 is the most I know of in Garrett Lisi's An Exceptionally Simple Theory Of Everything

Lisi’s ESTOE, also known as E₈ Theory, is described in E₈ Lie algebra, which has 248 complex number dimensions. Since Complex numbers can be represented as pairs of Real numbers, you can also say E₈ has dimension 496. Or, because it has a 8 dimensional Euclidean root system, you could call E₈ has 8 dimensions. Lie algebras are weird this way. :)

 

Garrett Lisi needs no link for me (though like a good hypographer, I just made one), as he’s for all purposes the guy I wanted and tried to be. Lisi’s a mathematical genius, though, and I’m a mathematical mediocrity, so while Lisi’s surfer-mathematician lifeplan worked for him, leading to a PhD and , for me it pretty much collapsed in a mess of homelessness and unplanned pregnancy that landed me with a BS in math in a child-support-paying, tie-wearing 9 to 5 computer programming one – not a bad life, I must say, but not IMO as good a Lisi’s.

 

What if any, is the cap on the maximum number of dimensions that space time can be warped into ?

Dimension in a physics theory is a complicated, counterintuitive thing. The number of dimensions doesn’t necessarily correspond to a number of measurable spatial dimension. In a sense, they’re features of the mathematical formalism needed to explain the physics of a space of fewer dimensions.

 

Legend says of Howard Georgi wrote this limerick on a board before the start of a string theory lecture in the early 1980s:

“Steve Weinberg, returning from Texas,

brings dimensions galore to perplex us.

But the extra one all

are rolled up in a ball

so tiny it never affects us.”