four dimensions and in even higher n-dimensional mathematics. Many
philosophers and mathematicians began to ask whether higher dimensions
existed.
Higher physical dimensions
Many leading mathematicians in the past thought that four dimensions could
not be imagined. They queried the reality of four dimensions, and it became a
challenge to explain this.
A common way to explain why four dimensions could be possible was to fall
back to two dimensions. In 1884, an English schoolmaster and theologian, Edwin
Abbott, published a highly popular book about ‘flatlanders’ who lived in the two-
dimensional plane. They could not see triangles, squares or circles which existed
in Flatland because they could not go out into the third dimension to view them.
Their vision was severely limited. They had the same problems thinking about a
third dimension that we do thinking of a fourth. But reading Abbott puts us into
the frame of mind to accept the fourth dimension.
The need to contemplate the actual existence of a four-dimensional space
became more urgent when Einstein came on the scene. Four-dimensional
geometry became more plausible, and even understandable, because the extra
dimension in Einstein’s model is time. Unlike Newton, Einstein conceived time as
bound together with space in a four-dimensional space–time continuum. Einstein
decreed that we live in a four-dimensional world with four coordinates (x, y, z, t)
where t designates time.
Nowadays the four-dimensional Einsteinian world seems quite tame and
matter of fact. A more recent model of physical reality is based on ‘strings’. In
this theory, the familiar subatomic particles like electrons are the manifestations
of extremely tiny vibrating strings. String theory suggests a replacement of the
four-dimensional space–time continuum by a higher-dimensional version.
Current research suggests that the dimension of the accommodating space–time
continuum for string theory should be either 10, 11 or 26, depending on further
assumptions and differing points of view.
A huge 2000 tonne magnet at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland, designed to
engineer collisions of particles at high speeds, might help to resolve the issue. It
is intended to uncover the structure of matter and, as a by-product, may point to