For decades, educators and science communicators have wondered how to get more people interested in science, STEM careers, and the staggering wonders of our universe.
Personally, the bite of science bug only took one moment on an early summer afternoon to capture my imagination. Sitting in the grass under a tree on Front Street, just beyond the Sorting Gap docks, I lost myself in a book. It may have been by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Lawrence Krauss, Cara Santa Maria, or Brian Cox. Page by page, deeper into wonder. When I began walking down Williams Avenue, the world around me felt different: brighter, more alive, almost luminous. Science had done what it so often does. It informed my mind and inspired my heart.
Among the many ideas that spark wonder are Einstein’s Relativity (showing how space, time, and gravity are linked), String Theory (proposing tiny vibrating strings woven into extra dimensions), M-Theory (uniting string theories into a reality described with 11 dimensions), and growing fields that may reveal 14 dimensions around us.
11?14? How can that be?
If we are not mathematicians or theoretical physicists ourselves, how can we imagine this?
Our town’s furry friend Lil’ Amik — curious, whiskers twitching, tail at the ready — will serve as our explorer.
What does each dimension contain?
If he could somehow perceive each dimension, how might he experience each?
Each step upward adds freedom, movement, possibility, complexity (like hidden directions) with each dimension.
0th Dimension: Lil’ Amik is only a dot: pure location, no size, no movement. He simply is.
1st Dimension: A line emerges. Amik can move forward or backward, and nothing more.
2nd Dimension: Length and width define his flat world. Shapes exist, but no depth. (Carl Sagan explained this using the concept of “Flatland” by Edwin Abbott.)
3rd Dimension: The world as we know it: length, width, and depth. Lil’ Amik roams freely, just as we do.
4th Dimension: Time joins space as spacetime. Though we cannot directly perceive it ourselves, Lil’ Amik can (in this exercise) see his past, present, and future—his entire life’s timeline—unfolded all at once simultaneously.
Up until this point, Lil’ Amik has remained in the realm of physics and popular science. Beyond this, we enter an incredible place. Speculative territory, branching timelines, alternative laws, and mind-blowing models are guided by further theoretical physics, mathematics, and revelations aided by growing and expanding scientific fields. They stretch how reality is perceived (especially in complexity and possibilities) and balanced between mathematical models, natural laws, and imagination.
For instance, string theory is framed up to 10 dimensions.
M-Theory with 11.
12-14 reach into the world of philosophy and metaphorical understanding.
5th Dimension: This is the realm of multiple branching timelines. Every choice Lil’ Amik makes creates another version of his life, and he can see them all. Each choice functions as a starting point.
6th Dimension: Similar, but the branching timelines spawn from more than one starting point. Rather, all possible beginnings and starting points occur as parallel realities bloom around him.
7th Dimension: Lil’ Amik witnesses every possible reality, but only those that follow the laws of physics he is used to. He finds countless universes, each bound by shared rules he is familiar with.
8th Dimension: Another step in complexity as universes with different laws appear. Lil’ Amik may find some have gravity that repels, time that runs backward, but each of realities are consistent in their own laws that define them.
9th Dimension: Lil’ Amik finds that all combinations of all possible physical laws coexist here with universes side by side.
10th Dimension: A vast clearinghouse: all universes, all laws, all multiverses, nothing is left out as Lil’ Amik looks on into Superstring Theory.
11th Dimension: Welcome to the domain of M-Theory. Lil’ Amik sees membranes (“branes”) and strings weaving universes into a unified whole.
12th Dimension: This is the realm of patterns beyond physics, space, or time. Blueprints of existence shimmer before him as Lil’ Amik is left in wonder.
13th Dimension: Narratives and meaning emerge around Lil’ Amik as all realities form part of a vast, interconnected story.
14th Dimension – The highest level: pure unity. All possibilities collapse into oneness, where no distinctions between universes, laws, or patterns remain.
Lil’ Amik shakes the stardust off his fur, dives back into the river, and swims home to the 3rd dimension, changed by what he has seen.
Perhaps Lil’ Amik was sitting with me that summer afternoon when I felt the world grow brighter.
His journey through these dimensional explorations gives a reminder that science is more than equations and theories. It ignites a spark of wonder and illuminates not only the universe, but also the human heart.
Lil’ Amik’s journey is guided by well-established laws of the universe, expanded upon by possibilities revealed by speculative revelations found in science, mathematics, and taken to their limits.
However, it mirrors the gift of what science gives us: an invitation to Lil’ Amik (and us all) to stretch beyond the familiar and explore not only what is, but what might be.
Has this column earned a smile, a nod of understanding, or struck a small spark of interest in the destinations where science can take us?
If so – well played, Lil’ Amik. Well played.
