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Table of Contents
Part I - Time Travel
- W. J. Van Stockum
- Godel universe
- Misner space
- Cosmic strings
- Alcubierre drive
- Paradoxes
Part II - Wormholes
- Riemann’s cuts
- Karl Schwarzschild
- Einstein-Rosen Bridge
- Roy Kerr
- Transversable Wormhole
- The Casimir effect
- Quantum cosmology
- Cosmological constant problem
Part III - Higher dimensions
- Riemann metric tensor
- Gunnar Nordstrom
- Kaluza-Klein theory
- Supergravity
- 11-dimensional supergravity
- Compactification
- ADD model
- Randall-Sundrum models
Part IV - String theory
- S-matrix
- Veneziano amplitude
- Bosonic string theory
- Superstring theory
- M-theory
- Holography
- AdS/CFT
Part V - Multiverse
- Max Tegmark
- Brian Greene

PART I

TIME TRAVEL
 Einstein’s equations do allow for the possibility of time travel.

W. J. Van Stockum

In 1937, W. J. Van Stockum proposed that an infinite spinning cylinder, if spun

around near or at the speed of light, because of a phenomenon in general relativity

known as frame-dragging, one could be sent back in time, just by making a round trip

around this cylinder. The faster the cylinder spun, the further back in time you would go.

However, you would not be able to go back in time further than the creation of the time

machine cylinder itself. The problem with this solution is that it is not possible to create a

cylinder of infinite length. Also, since the cylinder is approaching the speed of light, the

centrifugal forces would cause the material that makes the time machine to rip apart.

Godel universe

It was also proposed in 1943, by Kurt Godel that time travel could be achieved in

a rotating universe. If you could somehow travel in some sort of spacecraft around this

rotating universe, you could go back in time. You could return to where you started,

however, would be shifted back in time. You could travel to any point in time and space

with this time machine. There is also a tendency for the Godel universe to collapse upon

its own gravity. The force of rotation must balance out with the force of gravity. The

larger the universe is, the greater the force of rotation must be.
 Kurt Godel calculated that for our universe, it would have to rotate once, every 70

billion years. There was also a minimum radius of time travel: 16 billion light years. Also,

if you wanted to go back in time, you would have to go just below the speed of light.

Godel was also aware of the paradoxes that would arise. Once could go back in

time, meet an older version of themselves and alter the past. One could find themselves

at an earlier period of time.

Nevertheless, Einstein regarded Godel’s proposal as an important contribution to

the theory of relativity. It was important for the analysis of the concept of time. Einstein

was initially bothered by the concept of time travel when he first formulated his

equations. However, the universe is not spinning, it is expanding.

Misner space

Charles Misner, from the University of Maryland, proposed a simplified universe

that can consider time travel. This is known as Misner space and can be understood by

an analogy. Picture the entire universe being the room you are sitting in. The points of

spacetime on the left wall, will become connected to the points on the right wall,

becoming identified with them. If you walk into the left wall, you will come out of the right

wall. The left and right walls are joined. The points on the front wall are identified with

the points on the back wall. The points on the floor are identified with points on the

ceiling. Entering one wall, allows you to emerge from the other wall immediately. In

Misner space, your bedroom can be the entire universe.

 Misner space is more mathematically simple than wormholes to work with

theoretically. In fact, topologically, they are very similar. Time travel could be possible, if

we could move the walls. The idea is that everytime you fall through the floor and

emerge through the ceiling, your velocity increases. This process would proceed until

you reached incredible velocities. These velocities will eventually approach the speed of

light. Eventually, you are going so fast that you travel back in time. Stephen Hawking

even proposed that the left and right wall in Misner space are identical to the mouths of

a wormhole.

Cosmic strings

J. Richard Gott, from Princeton, in 1991 made another proposal for time travel

with Einstein’s equations. Gott’s idea involves a concept known as cosmic strings.

These are relics of the Big Bang and their existence is a prediction of several theories.

Cosmic strings can be as thin as length scales shorter than an atomic nucleus, and as

long as millions of light years.

Gott found a solution to Einstein’s equations that allowed for these cosmic

strings. Where does the time machine come in? Well, Gott showed that if you took two

of these cosmic strings, and send them on a course toward each other, they could be

used to time travel right before they collide. A round trip around colliding cosmic strings

would cause space to contract. The space around the strings has shrunk. If you keep

accelerating, in your own reference frame, you will not exceed the speed of light, as to

not violate special relativity. However, to another observer, it would appear that you are
moving faster than the speed of light in this contracted space. This method can be used

to take a trip to the past. However, the energy necessary for this time machine would be

tremendous. These are speeds that only high energy protons have been observed to

manifest (99.999999996 percent the speed of light). However, it is possible.

Indeed, cosmic strings are rare, if they even exist at all.

Alcubierre drive

An Alcubierre drive, or a warp drive is a hypothetical space engine that

compresses the space in front of it and expands the space behind it, to break the light

barrier. This machine was first proposed in 1994 by Miguel Alcubierre. This warp drive

shrinks the space in front of you and expands the space behind you. You have moved

only a little, while space itself has shrunk. Since space itself is not bound by the speed

of light, perhaps it could shrink faster than the speed of light, allowing for superluminal

travel. We are not going to our destination, however, are bringing the destination to us.

According to Alcubierre, this is a viable solution to Einstein’s equations. It is

within the laws of physics. However, the ship would require large amounts of both

positive and negative energy. Positive energy compresses the space in front of you.

Negative energy would expand the space behind you. If we wanted to use the Casimir

effect to produce negative energy, then the metal plates would have to be separated by

the Planck length of 10^-35 meters. This is too small a length scale for us to manipulate.

Paradoxes
 The grandfather paradox is when the past is altered in a way that makes the

present impossible. Destroying your ancestor causes your own existence to be

impossible.

The information paradox is when information is brought to the future, thus, it has

no logical origin.

Bilker’s paradox is when the future is made intentionally impossible in a way that

is logically inconsistent.

The sexual paradox is when you are a father of yourself. This is a biological

impossibility.

PART II

WORMHOLES

Wormholes are sometimes called gateways or dimensional portals. A wormhole

is an alternative shortcut or path between two points in space and time. This is

analogous to the way that a worm can carve out his own path in an apple.

Mathematicians call them multiply connected spaces. Wormholes could one day provide

the ultimate means for interstellar travel.

Riemann’s cuts

Bernhard Riemann has truly left a legacy on the world of physics. Riemann was

able, not only to lay the mathematics of higher dimensions with his metric tensor, which
will be addressed in part III of this book. Riemann was also the first to anticipate

wormholes. Riemann considered what mathematicians call a “multiply connected

space”. This involves two sheets connected by a line. We can walk from one sheet to

the other by means of this cut that has no length. It is a multiply connected space and

the first example of a wormhole. However, Riemann did not anticipate that wormholes

would be considered means of interstellar travel.

Karl Schwarzschild

In 1916, shortly after Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity,

Karl Schwarzschild published the first relativistic description of a black hole. This was

only a few months after Einstein wrote down his equations. Karl Schwarzschild was a

German physicist. He was serving the German army on the Russian front when he

found this exact solution of the general relativity for a massive star. This is, even today,

the simplest solution for the equations of Einstein. It’s pretty astonishing. That one could

find a solution to the complex tensor equations of Einstein while dodging artillery shells.

Schwarzschild solved the Einstein equations and calculated a region of space with

some interesting properties. This was an exact solution to Einstein’s equation. There is

a horizon, a magic sphere or a point of no return in this gravitational solution. After you

pass the event horizon you become aware of the region between the black hole surface

and the gravitational singularity that lives at the center. You would be sucked in

immediately by gravity, with no hope of escape. Light could not even escape from this

sphere. The radius of this magic sphere became known as the Schwarzschild radius.
 Einstein-Rosen Bridge

This is the Schwarzschild radius and any one who falls in becomes aware of a

kind of mirror universe. It was Hermann Weyl, who showed that according to the

mathematical properties of this solution, there should be another universe behind this

sphere. This mirror universe could never be viewed physically. However, it’s existence

is a prediction of the Schwarzschild metric and is necessary for its consistency. This

Einstein-Rosen bridge, as it is known, is the bridge between our universe and that one.

The Einstein-Rosen bridge is named after Einstein and Nathan Rosen, who was his

collaborator, who introduced wormholes into the world of physics in 1935. The existence

of the bridge was a prediction of Schwarzschild's theory and fit the with consistency of

his description of the black hole. This bridge is the throat, at the center of the black hole,

that connects points of spacetime in different universes. Einstein thought that

communication between these two worlds was not possible. Any rocket would be

crushed. Communication through an infinite gravitational field would be very much

impossible. One would have to move at the speed of light to make it through to the

mirror universe. This is not possible.

At any rate, today the Einstein-Rosen bridge is speculated to act as a gateway

between universes by cosmologists. We could move about and fall into a black hole,

and would thus reemerge on the other side through a white hole. However, despite the

fact that the Einstein-Rosen bridge opens up momentarily, it closed so fast that nothing

can make it through in time. In fact, if you came close to the singularity, you would have
your atoms ripped apart by gravity. Einstein thought that nobody should be able to go

through a wormhole and live to tell about it.

Roy Kerr

Roy Kerr, is a mathematician from New Zealand. In 1963, Kerr found another

solution to Einstein’s equations. In this solution, Kerr proposed that a star, collapsing by

its own gravity, would rotate. This rotation would accelerate as the star begins to

collapse. A spinning black hole, in a way is the most realistic kind of dying star. In fact,

as a star collapses on its own gravity, it begins to spin faster. This is because of the

conservation of angular momentum.

This proposal created quite a stir in the world of physics. Here was an exact

solution of Einstein’s equations that could describe many of the black holes that

populate our universe. This is an interesting alternative to the Schwarzschild solution,

for reasons that we will find out in a moment. Kerr proposed something different about

the geometry of how this star would collapse. What Kerr proposed was that, instead of

collapsing into a point, the star would flatten into a ring-like geometry. Thus, if a

spaceship were shot into this ring from the side, they would be crushed by infinite

spacetime curvature. The catch is this: ​if you could enter the Kerr ring singularity from

the top, you could make it through.​ You would not be crushed through the Kerr

singularity. Radius and mass would be negative in this other universe that you could

pass into, according to Kerr. However, this would be a one-way trip. The gravity would

still be strong, however, not nearly as strong as Schwarzschild’s solution. It is strong

enough to prevent a trip back through it. This is a surprising conclusion. In this sense, in

the Kerr black hole, the Einstein-Rosen bridge could be used as a wormhole. This is still

a speculation. Physicists aren’t sure how stable this Kerr ring would be. The presence of

a spacecraft could cause the ring to become unstable. The gateway could be disturbed

also by objects interfering, such as a beam of light, which would amass a tremendous

amount of energy. We just don’t know how stable and how safe the Kerr black hole is as

a means of interstellar travel or travel between universes.

Transversable Wormhole

Kip Thorne, Michael Morris and Ulvi Yurtsever, in June of 1988 make the first

real proposal in physics for time travel, via a wormhole. Thorne and his collaborators

had to deal with much skepticism and the great deal of confusion surrounding these

wormholes. There were several obstacles Thorne had to address.

Infinite gravity at the singularity of the black hole is enough to rip any spacecraft

to shreds. The instability of the Einstein-Rosen bridge had to be addressed. Small

disturbances could throw off the entrance of the wormhole. To make it through the

Einstein-Rosen bridge, one would have to go faster than light. The wormhole could

close by itself, due to the effects of quantum mechanics. Intense radiation at the black

hole entrance could destroy a spacecraft or close the entrance itself. Because of

gravitational time dilation, the phenomenon from general relativity where clocks slow

down in the presence of intense gravity, time would come to a complete stop at the
center of the wormhole. Any spacecraft would come to a complete halt at the center. A

trip through the wormhole would take an infinite amount of time.

Their solution is applicable to a civilization that is advance enough, that is, can

utilize these energy scales. That being said, this wormhole time machine is possible.

However, it is not necessarily practical.

What was the solution that made the Einstein-Rosen bridge traversable? The

solution involves a kind of exotic matter at the center of the wormhole. This exotic

matter does not violate the laws of physics. However, it is possible that this exotic

matter does not exist. At any rate, this kind of exotic matter, if it exists, can be used to

help construct a machine for backwards time travel.

There are several ways to consider the Thorne time machine. In one of them, we

have two chambers. Each chamber contains two metal plates. Each pair of plates will

create an intense electric field. This field will be so intense that it will rip the fabric of

spacetime. The hole in space that is created will be a link between the two chambers.

One chamber remains stationary, while one is accelerated to some extreme velocity.

The clock in the accelerated chamber ticks slower than the stationary chamber’s clock.

Thus, time would tick at different rates in these chambers, and anyone who traveled

from one to the other, would be sent into the past or the future. There is another

possible wormhole solution that involves the spacecraft in the center of a cylinder. The

exotic matter warps the spacetime around the cylinder. This would create a wormhole

that connects to a distance point in space and time.

 In principle, Einstein’s equations do not disagree with the possibility of these

wormhole time machines postulated by Thorne and his colleagues. The main difficulty is

in harnessing this exotic matter. We can bend space and time into a kind of circle, if we

can harness matter with a negative energy. This is energy less than the vacuum. Kip

Thorne notes that if time travel is to be possible, then energy must, at least temporarily,

become negative. Negative energy could cause a wormhole to become transversable.

This would allow for a two-way trip. One could make this trip without having to worry

about event horizons. The trip on the Thorne time machine could be quite mild. It could

be similar to the trip one would take on a commercial airline.

Negative matter is different from ordinary matter. Negative matter falls up.

Negative matter possesses antigravity and would fall up in the Earth’s gravitational field.

It is repelled by ordinary matter. This makes it hard, perhaps even impossible, to

observe in nature. There could be negative energy floating in space.

The Casimir effect

Negative energy does exist, however, is extremely rare. Quantum field theory

shows that there is a way to obtain negative energy. It is possible. What must be

violated is a phenomenon known as the AWEC (average weak energy condition). In

1948, Hendrik Casimir, a Dutch physicist demonstrated, via the techniques of quantum

theory, that negative energy can be created.

Take two large metal plates. These plates are in an initial state of being

uncharged. One would surmise that there is no electrical force between these two
plates, since they are uncharged. However, according to Casimir’s quantum theoretical

calculations, because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, there is much going on in

the vacuum. This quantum activity in the vacuum involves particles and antiparticles be

created and then annihilating out of existence. Casimir predicted that the force

produced by these virtual particles could be measured. The force of the attraction grew

as the length of separation shrinks.

Casimir predicted that two neutral objects could attract each other. This was a

quantum reworking of classical electromagnetism. Nevertheless, this effect has been

observed in the lab and is now called the Casimir effect.

The question now becomes, how can we harness this effect in wormhole

production? Well, we could put two parallel metal plates at each of the entrances of the

wormhole. This would produce negative energy at each of the ends. However, Hawking

has pointed out that the radiation emitted at the entrance to the wormhole could be

enough to close it’s throat. This may or may not be possible, as even Thorne admits.

We just cannot say for certain at the present moment. We will not be able to calculate

whether the AWEC can be violated until we have a fully quantized theory of gravity.

Quantum cosmology

Quantum cosmology is a term coming out of theoretical physics. What does it

mean? This seams oxymoronic? Quantum mechanics is the science of the very small,

the atoms and the subatomic particles, that uses principle of probability. However,

cosmology is the science of the universe at large. Quantum cosmology is a branch of

physics founded by Stephen Hawking. So what is Hawking’s radical proposal? You may

not be prepared to believe it. Hawking has made a fantastic proposal that wormholes

could connect an infinite series of parallel universes. Our universe could be one in an

infinite number. Hawking’s calculations suggest that travel between these parallel

universes is possible. However, it is extremely unlikely.

How does this idea work? Remember that in quantum mechanics, a state of a

system is described by a wave function. The wave function is an amplitude of

probability. It is in a superposition, which is a set of possible outcomes or eigenstates.

Eigenstates is a fancy word for the outcomes themselves that can be pinned down upon

observation in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. When we observe

the quantum system, the wave function is said to collapse, or is reduced to a single

eigenstate. In quantum mechanics, observation affects the system as a whole. This is a

paradoxical and strange consequence of the quantum theory. How the wave function

changes with time is described by the Schrodinger equation. We can, via our calculation

of the wave function, determine the probability of locating a particle of being either here

or there.

Thus, Hawking decided to the treat the entire universe as if it were a particle in

quantum mechanics. Thus, our wave function of the universe, contains a set of all

possible universe configurations. The wave function of the universe is all possible

universes. This wave function is, of course, largest near our universe, as we observe it.

However, the wave function, is in a sense, spread out over all possible configurations of

universes. This includes the ones that we don’t observe. The wave function is, however,
very small at these other configurations. Thus, we do not expect to fall into them at any

point. A quantum transition to these other universes is very unlikely.

This wave function is large for our universe, however, it is exceedingly small for

all other possible universe configurations.We live in our universe, since, it has the

largest probability. It is the most likely.

This conjecture postulates an infinite series of parallel universe that all coexist

with one another. The universe is no longer all that exists. It is all that can exist. Another

interesting feature of this quantum cosmology is that these universes can collide. This is

allowed by the wave function of the universe. These universes can be linked by a

series, a network of wormholes. These are wormholes that connect different universes

with each other. This is not like anything we have seen before. Sadly, even if these

parallel universes exist, we cannot travel to them, because of technological

insufficiency. Also, these quantum transitions are extremely rare. They would probably

happen only once is a period of time longer than the current age of the universe. This is

probably not a practical mode of transportation. Many of these universes are also,

probably devoid of any life. They are dead universes, if you will. It is also very possible,

that in this infinite series of universes, only ours is compatible with the evolution of life.

It has also been shown by Alan Guth of MIT that perhaps these baby universes

can be observed in the laboratory. It is of course, impossible to recreate the Big Bang in

the lab. However, Guth proposed some calculations from the physics of wormholes that

showed that similar conditions could perhaps be recreated in the laboratory. The way

this would be done is by concentrating intense heat and energy in some apparatus or
chamber. The idea is that this energy could spring open the entrance to a wormhole.

This would act as a tiny portal to a much smaller “baby” universe. However, the jury is

still out as to whether or not this is possible.

Cosmological constant problem

Sidney Coleman is a Harvard physicist. Coleman has developed a fascinating

theory of wormholes that is a proposed solution to the cosmological constant problem.

To understand this dilemma and its potential solution, we must return to the work of

Albert Einstein.

Einstein was curious if the vacuum of space itself should contain some kind of

energy. The measure of this energy would be a quantity known as the cosmological

constant. Despite the fact that he didn’t like it, Einstein had a hard time working around

this vacuum energy. It was the 1920s, where Einstein deduced from his equations that

the universe should be expanding. This is despite the fact that the conventional wisdom

of the time was that the universe was not changing. It was believed that we lived in a

static universe. This is where the cosmological constant came in. The cosmological

constant, would account for this apparent expansion in the mathematics of Einstein’s

equations, yielding a static universe, which was the prevailing cosmological model of

the time. However, Edwin Hubble, in 1929 showed by his observations, that the

universe is in fact expanding. The cosmological constant was done away with by

Einstein. He even called it the biggest “blunder” of his life.

 So what about today? The prevailing wisdom is that the cosmological constant is

very close to zero. It may even be zero. The universe would either be too small or would

fly apart if the cosmological constant were too small or too large respectively. What is

the problem then? The problem came about in the 1970s in research of the Standard

Model and grand unified theories of electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear

forces. When symmetries between these forces are broken, it is predicted that the

vacuum will gain a large amount of energy. This amount of energy is 10^100 times

greater than what theory predicts. This discrepancy cannot be ignored. A large vacuum

energy is predicted when symmetry is broken, however, theory predicts that the

cosmological constant should be zero or close to zero.

Sidney Coleman’s wormhole hypothesis could help to cancel the unwanted

contributions to the cosmological constant that is predicted the by the Standard Model

of particle physics. Coleman’s idea could determine the value of the universe’s

fundamental constants. Coleman calculated that Hawking’s proposal of the wave

function of the universe prefers to have a zero cosmological constant. There was a high

probability of finding a universe with a small cosmological constant. Coleman showed

that by having this series of parallel universes, the cosmological constant could be kept

at zero. The implication of this could be that wormholes are necessary to maintain a

stable universe.

Sadly, as is the case with much I am speaking of here, we will not have a full

grasp on these ideas until we have a quantized theory of the gravitational field.
PART III

HIGHER DIMENSIONS

Riemann metric tensor

Bernhard Riemann, after suffering from a nervous breakdown, was ready to

deliver his speech 1854 speech, that would reformulate geometry in a way so profound

that has not been seen since the time of Euclid. These are the rules that have governed

mathematics for about 2000 years.

Riemann was able to generalize the Pythagorean theorem, which determines the

relationship between the hypotenuse of a triangle (c) with its two shorter sides (a and b)

to include a 4th coordinate. Riemann showed that a^2+b^2=c^2 could be generalized to

a^2+b^2+c^2=d^2. The implications of this statement is actually profound, though it

seems simple. This demonstrates that it is simple to write down the formula for higher

dimensions. In fact, this formula can be generalized to even even numbers of

dimensions. We can mathematically express these dimension , despite the fact that it is

impossible for us to grasp them with our minds. We can express with mathematics what

we cannot visualize with our brains. In Riemann’s new geometry, we could describe any

kind of curvature in any number of dimensions.

So what are the various kinds of geometries that one could have? Well, as far as

curvature goes, a manifold can be either negatively curved, flat or positively curved. In

negative curvature, a sum of the angles of a triangle add up to less than 180 degrees.

Negative curvature resembles a pringles chip or a horse-saddle. In flat space, we have

Euclidean geometry, where the sum of the interior angles of a triangle add up to 180

degrees and parallel lines never meet. Positive curvature, on the other hand, can be

shaped as a sphere. The sum of the interior angles of a triangle written down on a

positively curved manifold add up to more than 180 degrees.

Riemann’s goal was to introduce a geometric mechanism that could describe any

kind of curvature in any number of dimensions. It was going to be a field with a

collection of numbers at each point that would describe exactly how curved space was

at that point. Riemann showed that 10 numbers could be used at each point in 4

dimensions to show how it curved. These numbers are arranged in a 4 x 4 matrix so it

appears that there are 16 components, not 10. However, there are 10 independent

components, as some of them are redundant. We call this structure introduced by

Riemann, the metric tensor. The greater the value on the metric tensor, the greater the

curvature of the manifold it describes. This metric tensor can describe any dimension

and any curvature.

Marcel Grossman, an old friend of Einstein’s, was the one to introduce him to the

metric tensor as a means of generalizing special relativity to include acceleration,

gravity and the curvature of spacetime.

Gunnar Nordstrom

We will discuss the larger theories of higher dimensions, that would extend the

metric of general relativity to include other fields. However, what the was the first theory

of 5-dimensional space, that even preceded Einstein’s theory of gravitation?

 In 1914, Gunnar Nordstrom, considered by many to be the “Einstein of Finland”,

proposed a 5-dimensional theory of electromagnetism and gravity. This theory preceded

general relativity. Nordstrom’s idea was to extend Maxwell’s field to 5 coordinates to

incorporate gravitation. In fact, Nordstrom’s theory did correctly include the Maxwell

field. However, the properties of gravitation were incorrect, as it was not based on

Einstein’s equations and was a scalar field.

Nordstrom’s ideas were forgotten by the mainstream physics community. The

theory was too primitive, especially, to compete with general relativity.

Kaluza-Klein theory

In 1919, a German mathematician, Theodor Kaluza, sent a letter to Albert

Einstein with a radical proposal. Kaluza proposed that you could unify Einstein’s theory

of gravity with Maxwell’s theory of light, by introducing a 5th dimension. This is 4

dimensions of space and 1 of time. Light, in this picture was rippling in the fabric of this

unseen dimension. This was a genuine field theory of gravity and light.

Kaluza began by writing down the Einstein field equations for gravity in 5

dimensions. This was a trivial task since Riemann’s metric can be formulated in any

number of dimensions. What was found was that this included the 4-dimensional field

for Einstein gravity, however, also Maxwell’s equations for light. Maxwell’s field and

Einstein’s field could be harmonized in a 5-dimensional metric. Einstein had a hard time

rejecting the elegance of Kaluza’s proposal.

 Of course, this 5-dimensional proposal involved the metric tensor in a very

important way. In a 15-component, 5-dimensional Riemann metric tensor, there is

enough room for the 10 components of the Einstein field, the 4 components of the

Maxwell field and 1 component for an insignificant scalar field.

Now the question becomes: where is the 5th dimension? In Kaluza-Klein theory,

there would be a hidden, fourth spatial dimension, that has curled up into a circle. In

1926, Oskar Klein, attempted to use the newly reformulated quantum mechanics to

explain the geometry of this extra compact dimension. Klein calculated that this extra

5th dimension should be the size of the Planck length (10^-33cm). This scale is too

small to probe, even with our most high energy particle accelerator experiments.

Sadly, Kaluza-Klein theory didn’t last. The physics community was not convinced

that this 5th dimension actually existed. We could not test the existence of an extra

dimension that is curled up on a Planck length geometry. It is impossible. We would

have to harness something called the Planck energy. The Planck energy is 10^19 billion

electron volts. This is over our technological horizon for the next few hundred years, at

least. Physicists also lost interest in Kaluza-Klein theory for quantum mechanics

instead, which was unlocking the secrets of the atom.

Supergravity

The next theory of higher dimensions to be considered is called Supergravity and

it did not come about until 1976. Supergravity was formulated by three physicists at the
University of New York at Stony Brook: Sergio Ferrara, Daniel Z. Freedman and Peter

van Nieuwenhuizen.

Supergravity attempts to combine principles of gravity with a kind of symmetry

known as supersymmetry. Supersymmetry is a symmetry between the two families of

subatomic particles: fermions and bosons. Fermions, like the quark and the electron,

have a half-integer spin and obey a tenet of quantum mechanics known as the

Pauli-exclusion principle. That is a theoretical limit on their number per area. In other

words, no two fermions can occupy the same quantum state at the same time. Bosons

on the other hand, have an integer value spin. These are the particles like the gluon,

which mediate the strong interaction, the photon, which mediates electromagnetism and

the W and Z boson which carry the weak nuclear force. Supersymmetry swaps bosons

with fermions in a mathematically precise way, giving rise to superpartners or sparticles.

The sparticles of the fermions have an “s-” prior to their name, while the sparticles of the

bosons, end in an “-ino”.

Supergravity involves two fields. There is a field for the massless spin-2 graviton,

which is expected to arise from a quantized theory of gravity. There is also a spin-3/2

“gravitino” field, which means “little graviton”.

So where does the metric come in? Well, to include matter and supersymmetry

into the Riemann metric, we must formulate it in 11 dimensions. Supersymmetry and

the Riemann metric tensor give us the super Riemann metric. This metric is twice as

large as the metric in Kaluza-Klein theory. There is not only room for the Einstein field

for gravity and the Maxwell field for light. There is also room for the Yang-Mills field of
the nuclear force and for a field that corresponds to the quarks and leptons that make

up matter. Sadly, this is not the entire picture. If we are to describe everything, a theory

of everything is necessary. That theory is, perhaps, string theory.

In fact, supergravity, much like Kaluza-Klein theory, had problems and eventually

was forgotten by physics at large. For starters, superparticles have never been

observed, ever. Supergravity could also not be properly quantized. Meaningless

infinities would arise in the mathematics. In other words, the theory was

non-renormalizable. Also, Supergravity did not contain enough symmetry to be able to

include the Standard Model. The highest symmetry of Supergravity is known as O(8). It

is too small. Supergravity, sadly, could not have been the entire picture.

11-dimensional supergravity

Werner Nahm, in 1978 showed something special about supergravity. 11 is the

maximum number that a consistent theory of supergravity can be formulated in. This is

despite the original formulation of supergravity by the Stony Brook group, which was

formulated in 4 dimensions.

In the same year, 1978, Eugene Cremmer, Bernard Julia and Joel Scherk

showed something else about supergravity in 11 dimensions. It allowed for two things:

local supersymmetry and no spin-greater than 2 particles. There was much hope at this

point that supergravity, in 11 dimensions, could provide a unified description of nature:

gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces.

 Peter Freund, in 1980 showed that there are particular ways that these 11

dimensions should be both extended and compactified. These methods were to

preserve the supersymmetry of the theory. Either 4 or 7 of the 11 dimensions would be

extended or compact. The idea was that the extended dimensions would form an

anti-de Sitter space.

Edward Witten, in 1981, made another contribution to 11-dimensional

supergravity. 11 is the lowest possible number of dimensions that could contain the

gauge groups of the Standard Model: SU(3) for the strong nuclear force, SU(2) for the

weak nuclear force and U(1) for electromagnetism.

Compactification

The next section of this book is dedicated to string theory, however, in this

section I will address what the extra dimensions of string theory can look like.

The extra spatial dimensions of string theory cannot just take on any arbitrary

geometry. The equations of string theory, in fact, severely restrict the kind of geometry

that these extra dimensions can take. The name of the particular geometry that satisfies

the requirements for string theory’s extra dimensions is known as a Calabi-yau

manifold. These constructions are typically 6-dimensional as they are applied to

superstring theory. They are named after Eugenio Calabi and Shing-Tung Yau. It was

proposed that this was the sufficient geometry for string theory in 1984 by Edward

Witten, Andrew Strominger, Gary Horowitz and Philip Candelas. We can project what

these manifolds would look like in 2 dimensions, despite the fact that these are
6-dimensional manifolds in superstring theory. We can get a rough idea of what these

curled up extra dimensions would look like. The idea is that at every point of

3-dimensional extended space that we observe macroscopically, there are 6 hidden

dimensions curled up the size of the Planck length (10^-35 meters).

A popular analogy for compactification is an ant that crawls on the surface of a

garden hose. If we view the hose from a sufficient distance, it appears to be a

1-dimensional line segment. However, if we approach the hose, we observe another

dimension: the circumference of the hose, where an ant can crawl in any direction.

Could the universe also have curled up hidden extra dimensions?

ADD model

These dimensions do not necessarily have to be small. Some theorists have

considered dimensions that could be almost as large as a millimeter. This model is

known as the ADD model and is named after the creators of this theory of large extra

dimensions: Nima Arkani-Hamed, Savas Dimopoulos and Gia Dvali.

In the ADD model, the Standard Model particles are confined to a brane. The

ADD models all have more than one dimension, and these dimensions are curled up.

There can be 2, 3 or more curled up extra dimensions. There is a single brane that the

Standard Model particles reside on. However, this brane does not bound space. This

brane sits inside the extra curled up dimensions. Thus, if we consider the extra

dimension as a cylinder, our brane would be a line that goes along the side of the

cylinder in the longer direction. In fact, the only force that is felt in the higher dimension
bulk is gravity. These theorists showed that this phenomenon could be explained by the

fact that these extra dimensions are not necessarily Planck length sized, however, are

as large as a millimeter.

Randall-Sundrum models

Lisa Randall and Raman Sundrum, two other physicists have considered other

brane world scenarios besides the ones proposed by ADD. These became known as

the Randall-Sundrum models, or RS1 and RS2 approaches.

In the RS1 approach, there are two branes bound by a 5th dimensional bulk that

extends between them. Gravity is the only force that exists between these branes in the

5-dimensional bulk. Gravity is not restricted to the brane. The Standard Model resides

on the Weakbrane, which has 4 dimensions. The bulk is a particular kind of space

known as anti-de Sitter space. The two boundary branes are completely flat. How is this

bulk warped? Each point of position, time, mass and energy in the fifth dimension

changes by a warp factor. We can understand this warpage through the graviton

probability function. Gravitons, communicate the gravitational interaction. The graviton

probability function gives us the probability of locating a graviton at any fixed point in

space. This function will reflect the strength of gravity at individual points in the model.

Remember, there are two branes in this model: the Gravitybrane, where the graviton

probability function is strongest and the Weakbrane, where the graviton probability

function has fallen off exponentially.

 The RS2 model is a bit different. There is only one brane, instead of two. The

bulk is warped and is infinite in size. This is a 4-dimensional brane embedded in a

5-dimensional universe. All of the particles of the Standard Model will reside on this

single brane. Only the Gravitybrane exists in this model. The probability function of the

graviton plummets, moving away from the brane into the bulk. The graviton probability

function is more concentrated or is localized near the brane.

PART IV

STRING THEORY

S-matrix

The S-matrix was an approach at describing the strong interactions that was

begun by Werner Heisenberg in 1943 and was picked up later on by Geoffrey Chew

and Stanley Mandelstam. The S-matrix began, as a very alien mathematical framework

that didn’t provide local notions of space and time and formulated from the infinite past

from the infinite future. The idea was that objects at the nuclear scale, were not

necessarily point particles, however, were perhaps extended objects. Our

understanding of these entities changed, as we knew about the proton and neutron,

there was also the meson. What Geoffrey Chew and Steven Frautschi proposed, was

that mesons fell into a relationship of that was proportional to the square of their mass

to their angular momentum. When the relationship between these two quantities was

plotted, they fell into straight line trajectories. These were called Regge trajectories,
named for Tullio Regge. What was also proposed were sum rules for hadron exchange

by Richard Dolen, David Horn and Christoph Schmid. This involved what was known as

the s-channel and the t-channel. In the s-channel, a particle and an antiparticle would

annihilate and fall apart into their final states. In the t-channel, a particle and an

antiparticle would exchange states by emission or absorption. What was also necessary

was a mathematical function known as the gamma function, which will be important for

reasons I will explain in a moment.

Veneziano amplitude

In 1968, two CERN researchers, Gabriele Veneziano and Mahiko Suzuki,

proposed that a purely mathematical function from a prolific 18th century Swiss

mathematician, Leonhard Euler. This was the beta function and what these researchers

proposed was that this was the answer to the S-matrix and could provide insight into the

data that was coming out of particle accelerators for the strong nuclear force. All of this

work led Veneziano to construct a scattering amplitude for 4 open string tachyons. This

is where the gamma function came in. The amplitude needed poles with straight line

trajectories where the particles would appear. Various manipulations of the gamma

function are what allowed for this construction.

Bosonic string theory

Veneziano’s amplitude was interpreted to a theory applicable to strong

interactions, only if these particles were modeled as 1-dimensional vibrational modes of

strings in 1969 and 1970 by Yoichiro Nambu, Leonard Susskind and Holger Bech

Nielsen. This was the birth of the original version of string theory: bosonic string theory.
Bosonic string theory, however, had some problems. For example, the name itself

implies that it only includes the bosonic constituents of nature, and not fermions, the

quarks and leptons that compose matter. There was also the presence of a particle with

an imaginary mass known as the tachyon. Bosonic string theory was also only

consistent, according to Claude Lovelace, if it was formulated in 26 dimensions.

It was also shown in 1974 by John H. Schwarz, Joel Scherk and Tamiaki Yoneya

that the presence of the massless spin-2 particle in string theory is indicative that string

theory is not a theory of the strong nuclear force, it is a theory of quantum gravity.

Superstring theory

There were various attempts to incorporate fermions into string theory. This

began with Pierre Raymond, Andrei Neveu and John H. Schwarz who proposed

“spinning strings” that came in a kind of pairs between bosons and fermions. It was later

shown by Ferdinando Gliozzi, Joel Scherk and David I. Olive that this relationship was a

supersymmetric one. Supersymmetry is the hypothetical symmetry between bosons and

fermions that has never been observed in nature. This gave birth to superstring theory

in the 1980s, which had five distinct versions, all formulated in 10 dimensions. Type I

had open and closed strings. Type IIA and type IIB had only closed strings. Type IIA

was non-chiral or parity conserving. Type II was chiral and non-parity conserving.

Chirality is a phenomenon in physics, where the laws of physics distinguish between

clockwise and counterclockwise. The heterotic string was also discovered in 1984 by

the Princeton String Quartet: Ryan Rohm, David Gross, Emil Martinec and Jeffery

Harvey. The heterotic string comes in two flavors: SO(32) and E 8 x E 8. The left and
right moving strings in heterotic string theory differ. They are kinds of hybrids between

the bosonic string and the type I superstring. What was also discovered in 1984 was

that the theories of quantum gravity that were initially thought to be plague with

anamolies and mathematical inconsistencies by Edward Witten and Luis Alvarez-Guam,

were actually shown to be consistent by John H. Schwartz and Michael Greene, who

proved that anamolies cancel in superstring theory. This is known as the

Green-Schwarz mechanism.

M-theory

It was also shown in 1995, based on work by Edward Witten, Ashoke Sen,

Michael Duff, Chris Hull and Paul Townsend, that the five versions of superstring theory,

were actually different ways of observing one theory in 11 dimensions, known as

M-theory. There were various mathematical relationships and transformations that

identified different versions of string theory with another, namely, S-duality and

T-duality. S-duality is a strong-weak duality. A coupling constant of a physical theory, is

in a sense, the strength of the interaction. In string theory, the coupling constant

determines the probability of strings splitting or reconnecting. If strings combine and

split frequently, we say that the string theory has a strong coupling constant. S-duality,

showed that a collection of strongly interacting strings, can be mathematically

equivalent to a collection of weakly interacting strings, and vice versa. Type I string

theory is related to the heterotic SO(32) string theory by S-duality and type IIB string

theory is related to itself by S-duality. Another mathematical transformation is known as

T-duality. T-duality relates different topologies of string theory. For example, we

consider a string propagating around an extra circular dimension. The string will have a

momentum and it will also have a winding number. The winding number determines

how many times the string winds counterclockwise around this extra circular dimension.

Now, in another string theory, we can have a string propagating around a slightly

smaller extra circular dimension. Under the transformation of T-duality, these different

topologies can be shown to be exactly equivalent. However, momentum and winding

number will be swapped moving from one string description to another. What was also

significant in Edward Witten’s proposal of M-theory was superstring theory’s relationship

to a field theory known as 11-dimensional supergravity.

Holography

The holographic principle arose from work on black hole thermodynamics.

Stephen Hawking, in the 1970s, after hearing conving quantum mechanical arguments

from Moscow, will propose that black holes are not so black. This is a phenomenon

known as Hawking radiation. The idea is that the vacuum of empty space cannot be

perfectly empty. This is because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. What would

instead be present are quantum fluctuations. These are virtual particles. They can also

be understood a pairs of particles and antiparticles. The negative energy particle will be

sucked into the black hole forever. The positive energy particle will escape the black

hole event horizon as Hawking radiation. This makes it appear as though the black hole

is losing mass. Hawking radiation is a kind of thermal radiation that black holes are

predicted to emit for these reasons.

 The proposal that black holes are evaporating away physical information will lead

to a serious contradiction in physics. On one side you have Hawking, who calculations

suggest that physical information can be permanently lost at a black hole. This is in

contradiction to the unitarity postulate of quantum mechanics. Quantum determinism

tells us that given a present wave function, the future changes of a quantum system

should be determined uniquely by an evolution operator. There is also quantum

reversibility, that this evolution operator has an inverse. All of these quantum

mechanical tenets imply that information should be preserved. This contradiction is

known as the black hole information paradox.

Gerard ‘t Hooft will seek to solve this dilemma. ‘T Hooft did not accept that

information could be permanently lost a black hole event horizon. ‘T Hooft is a Dutch

theoretical physicist. He won the Nobel Prize in 1991 for his work on the Electroweak

interaction. According to ‘t Hooft, the problems that arose from Hawking’s calculations

only arose because he was not working in a fully quantized theory of gravity, as one is

not yet available, even today. In 1993, ‘t Hooft proposed that the degrees of freedom of

the quantum fields around and near a black hole, can in a sense be understood as

being equivalent to a theory formulated in a higher dimension. These theories are

exactly equivalent despite living in a different number of dimensions.

Leonard Susskind, is going to look at the work of ‘t Hooft and give his

holographic principle, as it is known, a reworking into string theory. The holographic

principle is the proposal that a volume of space can be simulated by its boundary.

Susskind did this in 1995 in a lecture titled “The World as a Hologram”. This proved to
be a major contribution to quantum gravity. Susskind made a proposal along with his

collaborators: Tom Banks, Willy Fischler and Stephen Shenker. Hence, there

holographic description of M-theory became known as the BFSS matrix model and is a

prototype for M-theory.

AdS/CFT

Juan Maldacena is an Argentinian theoretical physicist. Maldacena, in 1997 will

propose the most mathematically reliable and concrete version of the holographic

principle. This is known as the AdS/CFT correspondence and it is a duality between two

kinds of physical theories. On one side is a theory of quantum gravity or Einstein gravity

with dynamical spacetime, formulated on a geometry known as anti-de Sitter space,

which is negatively curved like a horse saddle or a pringles chip. On the boundary to

this theory of quantum gravity is a quantum field theory with some interesting properties.

This boundary theory is known as a conformal field theory since it has conformal

symmetry (angles are preserved locally) and scale invariance (rescaling coordinates

gives us the same physics). These theories are exactly equivalent despite living in a

different number of dimensions.

The first example of AdS/CFT or the gauge/gravity duality as it is also known

involves type IIB string theory with 5 extended and 5 compact dimensions. On the

boundary will be the N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. This theory is similar to

quantum chromodynamics which can describe the interactions between quarks and

gluons. There are other realizations of AdS/CFT, such as M-theory with 7 extended and
4 compact dimensions, dual to the 6D (2,0)-superconformal field theory. This boundary

theory also has some applications in knot theory. There is also M-theory with 4

extended and 7 compact dimensions, dual to the ABJM superconformal field theory, a

theory similar to the Chern-Simons theory in 3 dimensions.

The AdS/CFT correspondence has many applications, to both quantum gravity

and to quantum field theory. In quantum gravity, the AdS/CFT correspondence can

show how a black hole can evolve in a manner consistent with quantum mechanics.

This is, however, only in some contexts. It can also give us a non-perturbative

formulation of string theory. Perturbation theory is the use of Feynman diagrams to

describe the interactions of subatomic particles. In quantum field theory, the AdS/CFT

correspondence has been used to understand some properties of the quark-gluon

plasma. AdS/CFT can show how the ratio of the shear viscosity to the he volume

density of entropy for the plasma can be approximately equal to a certain universal

constant. This is based on work from 2005 by Dam Thanh Son. AdS/CFT can also show

how a superfluid can transition to an insulator state. This is based on work by

condensed matter physicist Subir Sachdev.

PART V

THE MULTIVERSE

Max Tegmark

Max Tegmark’s classification of multiverses forms a nested hierarchy of 4

multiverses, each one more diverse than the previous.

The Level I multiverse involves distant regions of space that are, at the moment,

unobservable. However, they are not, forever, unobservable. Each of these universes

may have different histories. However, they may have the same laws of physics.

In the Level II multiverse, you have regions of space that are forever

unobservable. This is because the space between our universe and these other

universes is continuously inflating. All of these universes obey the same fundamental

laws of physics, however, the effective laws of physics may be different.

We must first understand quantum mechanics before we can understand the

Hugh Everett’s Level III multiverse (MWI or Many-worlds interpretation). In quantum

mechanics there is an entity known as the wavefunction. The wavefunction is a

mathematical entity that describes the quantum state of an object. It describes the

extent to which a particle can be in different places. We call this, the super position: the

quantum mechanical situation where a wave function describes something as being in

more than one state at once. An example of this is a particle being in two different

places. The equation that lets us predict how the wave function will evolve in time is

known as the Schrodinger equation. The wave function lives in an abstract

mathematical space known as Hilbert space. A measurement in a wave function can be

given a definite outcome in a process known as wave function collapse. This is a

hypothesized random process. It is also an abrupt violation of the Schrodinger equation.

We call this controversy, of, whether or not the wave function collapses, the

measurement problem. There are several different interpretations. In the Copenhagen

interpretation, it is assumed that during measurement, the wave function will collapse. In

the Everett interpretation, which implies a Level III multiverse, the wave function does

not collapse. In other words, the many-worlds interpretation states that all potentialities

embodied by a probability wave are realized in separate universes. The diversity of

these multiverses will be the same as in Level II.

A level IV multiverse realizes all mathematical structures. In this scenario, there

is no distinction between mathematical and physical existence. All structures that exist

mathematically, exist physically as well. This forms a Level IV multiverse. To explore the

Level IV multiverse, you do not need a rocket or a telescope. You need computer

software and mathematical ideas. We still have not yet, fully understood the

transcendent nature of the Level IV multiverse.

Brian Greene

Brian Greene discusses the possibility of their being nine types of multiverses.

In a quilted multiverse, we consider conditions that yield a universe that is infinite

in size. It is hypothesized that conditions would, necessarily repeat across space. This

would yield parallel universes. Of course, this would only work for a universe that is

infinite in size. The idea is that if there is an infinite amount of space, then every

possible event will occur an infinite number of times. We of course, cannot see these

other universes, only because the speed of light is not fast enough for their physical

information to have reached us yet.

In the inflationary multiverse, we consider a universe where cosmological

inflation has no beginning or end, however, is eternal. Inflation could be eternal. Inflation

is a cosmological theory where the early universe expanded at an exponentially rapid

rate. In this particular multiverse scenario, there is an infinite network of bubble

universes. Our universe would be one of them. This multiverse will be broken up into

little pockets or bubbles where inflation has stopped. Each of these bubbles can have

different properties, such as their physical constants.

The brane multiverse is a consideration out of string theory and M-theory’s brane

world scenario. This is one of the means of making the extra dimensions of string theory

invisible to our low energy world. In it, our universe lives on a 3-dimensional brane. This

brane floats in a higher dimensional expanse that has the potential to be inhabited by

other branes, or, other universes. We call this higher dimensional space the bulk or

hyperspace. The collision of branes is also sufficient energy to give rise to other Big

Bangs, which leads into the fourth type of multiverse, the cyclic multiverse, collisions

between branes can yield Big Bang-like beginnings for other universes that are parallel

in time. Each of these branes would carry a universe. The process of brane collision

and fission could be happening over and over again, creating new universes in the

process.

The fifth multiverse idea is the landscape multiverse. This is a combination of

ideas from both string theory and inflationary cosmology. The many different geometries

that the extra dimensions of string theory can take on, correspond to the many different

bubble universes in the landscape multiverse. There is a vast landscape of possible

physical configurations that a universe could comprise in string theory. We call these
possible configurations “false vacua.” All of these false vacua collectively is known as

the string theory landscape. This landscape consists of somewhere between 10^10 and

10^500 different configurations. These are different geometries of a Calabi-yau space,

the geometry that the extra 6 or 7 dimensions of superstring theory and M-theory are

compactified on respectively. These are discussed in part III of my book.

The sixth proposed hypothetical multiverse scenario is known as the quantum

multiverse. This is similar to Hugh Everett III’s many-worlds interpretation of quantum

mechanics or Max Tegmark’s Level III multiverse. This is when quantum mechanics

suggests that every possibility that is embodied in a wave of probability is actually

realized as a universe, in a vast number of parallel universes. In other words, at each

diversion in events, a new universe is created.

The holographic principle brings us to our seventh proposal for a multiverse,

known as the holographic multiverse. According to the holographic principle, our

universe could be exactly mirrored by phenomenon that takes place on some distant

boundary surface. This would be a physically equivalent parallel universe. This is the

proposal that a volume of space can be simulated by its boundary. These descriptions

are exactly equivalent despite the fact that they live in one different number of

dimensions.

Technological leaps give us our eighth possibility of a multiverse, the simulated

multiverse. The way technology is advancing suggests that one day, simulated

multiverses may be possible. This is the proposal that our universe exists on a

computer simulation. This computer can also simulate other universes, each with its
own properties, physical constants and laws of physics.

Lastly, we are given a possibility from the principle of fecundity. This is the idea

that every possible universe is real. This is every mathematically possible universe,

under every possible configuration of the laws of physics.