Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey guys, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: This is Alison I don't like, the science editor at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb,
Speaker 1: science writer at how stuff works dot com. And you know,
Speaker 1: normally there there are three microphones in the recording uh
Speaker 1: room here, and normally we only occupied to but we
Speaker 1: actually have a third person in the studio with us.
Speaker 1: Also one you'd like to introduce him. Yeah, to my left.
Speaker 1: Sitting to my left is um a special gentleman who
Speaker 1: agreed to join us, and his name is Stanley. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Flat Stanley. Yeah. Perhaps you all are acquainted with Flat
Speaker 1: Stanley and maybe you've taken him on some travels of yours.
Speaker 1: There's a big sort of movement with Flat Stanley and
Speaker 1: getting him to see the world. Yeah, it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: a like actually a literacy thing. Um. So if you
Speaker 1: have kids or you know their kids somewhere in your family,
Speaker 1: then there's a chance Flat Stanley has paid a visit
Speaker 1: to your home, perhaps in an envelope. Um, Now do
Speaker 1: you remember reading about Flat Stanley as a kid. You
Speaker 1: you said you hadn't read I had not like I
Speaker 1: I had never heard of Flat Stanley until like suddenly
Speaker 1: my mom, who's a kindergarten teacher, started talking about Flat
Speaker 1: Stanley and I'm like oh. And then then um Nis
Speaker 1: and nephew suddenly they have Flat Stanley come into our house,
Speaker 1: you know, to hang out, and uh, apparently it's a
Speaker 1: big deal to deal. Now it's um the brainchild, what's
Speaker 1: based on a book by Jeff Brown. And then this
Speaker 1: guy Dale Hubert started, Uh, he's a Grade three teacher
Speaker 1: in London, Ontario, started this whole take Flat Stanley and
Speaker 1: Adventures with Your Thing, and it's a huge deal. I
Speaker 1: love the books. I remember reading them as a kid,
Speaker 1: and he just some cool things that you know, being
Speaker 1: flat allow him to do. Yeah, Like, for example, I
Speaker 1: think in one of the adventures he has, he is
Speaker 1: able to go down into a sewer grade and pick
Speaker 1: up some shiny ring that somebody dropped. And I think
Speaker 1: he'd do all sorts of other stuff like squeeze between
Speaker 1: doors because of his nice flatness, and probably under window
Speaker 1: jams and stuff like that. But I do remember he
Speaker 1: uh he can go into the sewer grade. I believe
Speaker 1: it was cool. I mean maybe not. He gets a
Speaker 1: little dirty Yeah, but kids should probably shouldn't like send
Speaker 1: him down the sewer or too often on these, but
Speaker 1: you know they are. Yeah, I guess it makes for
Speaker 1: a cool story, that's the thing, because then they write
Speaker 1: about it in their journal. It's like, here's what Flat
Speaker 1: Stanley did today, and then they turn that into their
Speaker 1: their teacher, right right, So today we're gonna take Flat
Speaker 1: Stanley on a journey across the dimensions. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 1: we live in a three D world. He lives in
Speaker 1: a two D world, so you know, yeah, we thought
Speaker 1: we'd use Stanley to illustrate the concepts of the dimensions
Speaker 1: as we know them and some dimensions that string theorists
Speaker 1: propose out there. Okay, well let's uh, let's back it up.
Speaker 1: Then let's get down to the dimensional, very basic one
Speaker 1: dimensional world. So picture of Flat Stanley for a second
Speaker 1: in your head, and in flat Stanley if you if
Speaker 1: you've never seen him before, and you even you're not
Speaker 1: looking him up on a computer right now, he's this
Speaker 1: guy on a sheet of paper and you cut him out.
Speaker 1: He's like a little cartoon guy. Yeah. Yeah, in this
Speaker 1: picture he has a an his tie on with Poka
Speaker 1: dots and a white button down shirt, some slacks. Do
Speaker 1: you like that? I just call them slacks. I feel
Speaker 1: like my mom sings slacks and uh yeah, just a
Speaker 1: regular liking dude, maybe a middle aged maybe thirties. So
Speaker 1: flat Stanley as we have him, is too deep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we need get him down to one d we do?
Speaker 1: How are we going to do that? Well, basically, right now,
Speaker 1: he has no depth, all right, He just has length
Speaker 1: in width, So we need to break that down to
Speaker 1: just length. Yeah, all right, so let's just come down
Speaker 1: to a particle. Yeah, basically, would just be one single
Speaker 1: point in the universe that he would live in, would
Speaker 1: be a single line. So the universe is a line,
Speaker 1: and Stanley is a point on point on that line,
Speaker 1: and he's moving. He can only move backward. He can
Speaker 1: move backward and forward. Right, say that this line is
Speaker 1: ten inches long. You only need one number to tell
Speaker 1: me exactly where Stanley is at any given moment. Five
Speaker 1: inches there, Stanley. There's no other number needed. It's pretty boring. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like if if Stanley were hanging out on that
Speaker 1: line with another particle being you know, he would be like, hey, dude,
Speaker 1: what do you want to meet for lunch? And they're like,
Speaker 1: let's meet at six and that's all you would need
Speaker 1: because there's no there's no other dimension but that. So
Speaker 1: let's take Stanley to his current um, his current shape,
Speaker 1: which is two D. Yeah, it's up to two dimensions
Speaker 1: too D world. You're looking at length and width. Um.
Speaker 1: The the the example I love to use with this
Speaker 1: one battleship because battleship is a game where to to
Speaker 1: pinpoint any position, and therefore you know injure the other
Speaker 1: person's battleships and submarines. Ex second, you sunk my battleship,
Speaker 1: injure them. They're not organic, but that would be kind
Speaker 1: of cool. I guess they have to be like whales
Speaker 1: and stuff. He sunk my whale. It just doesn't have
Speaker 1: the right rank. The whale war guys would be really
Speaker 1: upset about that one. Um. So now in battleship, if
Speaker 1: you want to you want to hit a point, you
Speaker 1: just need those two numbers. So it's like coordinates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like E five. So you have you line up E,
Speaker 1: you line up five, and you connect those two lines,
Speaker 1: um and bang, oh yeah you have you have the
Speaker 1: location of that object in a two D world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like if you you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: kind of like on a city map. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like if you were going to meet somebody for lunch
Speaker 1: and you're like, hey, dude, where you want to meet
Speaker 1: for lunch? They might say at the corner of you know, Firstmont,
Speaker 1: for example, Tree and Piedmont. There you go, Um, which
Speaker 1: Peach Tree? Well that's another issue. Atlanta planning kind of
Speaker 1: messes with our ability to to use a proper metaphor here.
Speaker 1: But but but yeah, it's like the corner of two streets,
Speaker 1: two coordinates. In a two D world, you only need
Speaker 1: two numbers to pinpoint exactly where you are in any
Speaker 1: given time. So that's two dimensions exactly. I think you
Speaker 1: guys are all with us. We're certainly, we're certainly still there.
Speaker 1: So let's take it to three D. Let's move on up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: three D world, that's where we are now. So you have, um,
Speaker 1: flat Stanley. All of a sudden, maybe we need to
Speaker 1: give flat Stanley a little girth. Maybe he's not flat anymore,
Speaker 1: Maybe he becomes fat Stanley Stanley. I would think your
Speaker 1: rotun Stanley. Yeah. Yeah. For flat Stanley to really be
Speaker 1: a three D being, he would need all three, Tom,
Speaker 1: he needs a little girth, he needs maybe you know,
Speaker 1: some some muscle mass and some protrusions, some appendages. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: now we're dealing with with length, width and depth. In depth,
Speaker 1: you can also uh swap that out for altitude because like,
Speaker 1: let's go back to Battleship. All right, there's a submarine
Speaker 1: and battleship. But in the game, the submarine is always
Speaker 1: on the surface because you only have those two coordinates.
Speaker 1: In reality, of course, the submarine goes to varying depths. Right,
Speaker 1: So there's actually an advanced version of Battleship in which
Speaker 1: the uh, the game platform rises and falls and you
Speaker 1: have to do it like that. Have you ever heard
Speaker 1: of that? No? I didn't know that totally, Like, well, wow,
Speaker 1: you got okay, So yeah, at any rate, to sink
Speaker 1: a real submarine, you would need it's latitude and its
Speaker 1: three coordinates latitude, longitude, and depth depth, so it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, it would be like e five plus uh,
Speaker 1: you know, plus however deep it was in the ocean. Likewise,
Speaker 1: if you're meeting up somebody for lunch and the building
Speaker 1: happens to be ten stories tall, you'd be like, meet
Speaker 1: me at the corner of what was the address, Peachtree
Speaker 1: and Piedmont Um. The restaurant is on the fifth floor, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, at any given point in our world, three
Speaker 1: numbers will tell you where exactly you can be found. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the three spatial dimensions I'll work nicely for helping you
Speaker 1: find your lunch date, right, definitely. Of course we're talking
Speaker 1: about lunch, right, so we have to set some sort
Speaker 1: of time, right, Yeah, don't show if you show up
Speaker 1: for lunch at three o'clock in the afternoon and you're like, dude,
Speaker 1: where are you and then you say when when we
Speaker 1: were gonna have lunch. We were gonna have ch at noon,
Speaker 1: at lunchtime, and you're late, that's where we end up. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is your you know. Of course we're not gonna
Speaker 1: line up if you're showing up at different times, and
Speaker 1: that's where we uh where time enters the equation here.
Speaker 1: Sometimes time is referred to as the fourth dimension, but
Speaker 1: physicists who are really dealing with with the idea of
Speaker 1: multiple dimensions, they often refer to it like this. We
Speaker 1: have three spatial dimensions as in space, and one dimension
Speaker 1: of time. So in that you need four numbers to
Speaker 1: successfully pull off a lunch date. You need to know latitude, longitude,
Speaker 1: altitude and when that is taking place, right, Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think everybody's got that so far. So let's get
Speaker 1: a little crazy. Yeah, so let's talk about the possibility
Speaker 1: of a fourth spatial dimension. And at this point, flat
Speaker 1: Stanley is just's he's he's just blanking out because Stanley's
Speaker 1: taken a nap because you think it's complicated for us
Speaker 1: to talk about four dimension. I mean, this dude's only two.
Speaker 1: So well, okay, so let's let's take him. Let's take
Speaker 1: him with us for the right. Right, So we've given
Speaker 1: him girth in our three D world. Now he knows
Speaker 1: what time is, so he's not gonna be late for
Speaker 1: a lunch date. Now let's take him into our fourth
Speaker 1: spatial dimension and let's talk about how that originated. Okay,
Speaker 1: So yeah, now again, this is something our brains can't
Speaker 1: really perceive. There's some good analogies. Yeah, we can draw
Speaker 1: on an analogies and we can discuss why we think
Speaker 1: about it. But don't feel bad if you cannot picture
Speaker 1: the fourth dimension, because that's your brain. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen, you had a mathematician by the name of
Speaker 1: Theodore Caluza, and he, uh, maybe I maybe maybe putting
Speaker 1: more fun into that lass name than there actually is.
Speaker 1: But anyway, he theorized that a fourth spatial dimension might
Speaker 1: link general relativity and electromagnetic theory. Okay, that didn't actually
Speaker 1: work out, but still he gave it us a lot
Speaker 1: of thought. Um, where would that fourth spatial dimension go? Right?
Speaker 1: Theoretical physicist Oscar Klein, he worked on the theory a
Speaker 1: little more and he little revision, did a little tinkering. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he proposed that the fourth spatial dimension was merely
Speaker 1: curled up while the other three spatial dimensions are extended. Okay,
Speaker 1: and at this point let me interrupt. Um, I was
Speaker 1: watching The Elegant Universe recently, just get a little backing,
Speaker 1: and it is really an awesome program that Brian Green
Speaker 1: does from Columbia University and explains really some good stuff
Speaker 1: on string theory and dimensions. And he was suggesting that
Speaker 1: there's really a helpful way to think about dimensions. Um,
Speaker 1: And we think about kind of unfurled or stretched out
Speaker 1: dimensions and these are your length and your height and
Speaker 1: your altitude and then tiny like tape measure type dimensions
Speaker 1: curled up right, So there's furled and unfurled. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: kind of like to think of you ever seen like
Speaker 1: a cartoon where they have like that little like they
Speaker 1: take a what looks like a black hole, it's like
Speaker 1: a two D thing and they like slap it on
Speaker 1: the wall and suddenly they can reach inside. Or or
Speaker 1: like indungeons and dragons, you could get like a um,
Speaker 1: a little pouch that had limitless capacity, Like you could
Speaker 1: reach your whole arm into this tiny little pouch. It's
Speaker 1: like the idea that the space is there, but it's
Speaker 1: like folded. It's it's like, yeah, tape demension, tape dispenser dimensions. Right,
Speaker 1: So we're talking about this fourth spatial dimension as being
Speaker 1: um curled up and located at every point in space. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's like every point in space has like this
Speaker 1: extra layer that's just completely folded up inside it. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's give a visual to this. Let's think about like
Speaker 1: a telephone polar or a cable that's across the street
Speaker 1: and you're looking at it kind of far away, so
Speaker 1: really to you, you can only perceive it's um it's
Speaker 1: length rising up into the sky. But then you you
Speaker 1: you walk a little closer. You're curious about this cable,
Speaker 1: and you you can see you can perceive it's um
Speaker 1: its dimensions because all of a sudden you can tell
Speaker 1: it's circular. So you can kind of move flat Stanley
Speaker 1: along the cable if you so desire, or you can
Speaker 1: move flat Stanley now around the cable. So if you
Speaker 1: carry that image with you to the fourth dimension, think
Speaker 1: about that point in space and then every point in
Speaker 1: space as having a circular to mention that you can traverse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's um like to go back to the building. Like
Speaker 1: one way I was thinking about this. All right, we're
Speaker 1: meeting our lunch date, right, and it's we need the longitude,
Speaker 1: we need the latitude, and then we need to need
Speaker 1: to know what floor it's on. Okay, just dealing with
Speaker 1: spatial here, don't worry about time. Now. Imagine you get
Speaker 1: to that the third floor of that building for that
Speaker 1: that for the lunch date, and then you look around
Speaker 1: and you're like, whoa, there are multiple businesses on this level.
Speaker 1: Which which door do I go to? Right, It's like
Speaker 1: the closer you get, there's there's something. There's another level
Speaker 1: of complexity, right, and and and so the fourth dimension
Speaker 1: is Yeah, it's rolled up inside this other one. It's
Speaker 1: a it's another place that something could hide away in,
Speaker 1: right right, right, Yeah, I mean that's the that's the
Speaker 1: thing about science and physics, and particularly string theory, is
Speaker 1: that the deeper you look, the more complexity is going
Speaker 1: to arise. It's just kind of mind boggling. It is.
Speaker 1: It is very mind boggling. So again, don't feel bad
Speaker 1: if you're your head spinning a little bit here. Okay,
Speaker 1: So but let's take it down to that point in space.
Speaker 1: And now we have the little circle at that point.
Speaker 1: So that's our fourth curled up spatial dimension. Well, now
Speaker 1: we're going to make that little circle and we're gonna
Speaker 1: make it a little crazier shape. We're gonna form it
Speaker 1: into a a six dimensional shape called a collaby Yo shape. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this is, uh, this is a crazy looking it
Speaker 1: really is. It's um it kind of looks like like
Speaker 1: some sort of like a Nautilus shell or something and
Speaker 1: kind of like um an esser painting. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like all sorts of curving. Yeah. You also use the
Speaker 1: analogy of a star check holiday ornament in your artist Yeah,
Speaker 1: very space age and and awesome and so yeah, imagine
Speaker 1: that like each if you can sort of menage that
Speaker 1: each point in space has it up inside it a
Speaker 1: six dimensional object, then then you can begin to see it.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like you get to you get
Speaker 1: to that level of the building where you're hoping to
Speaker 1: find a restaurant and you find like eight restaurants, you
Speaker 1: know that that kind of thing. Yeah, and we should
Speaker 1: mention that this need for all the dimensions was somewhat
Speaker 1: born out of string theory and called for out of
Speaker 1: string theory, although Khalitza and Climber really before string theory
Speaker 1: got its groove on, you know, back in the in
Speaker 1: the second half of the twentieth century. Um, they were
Speaker 1: the ones who really called for all those extra dimensions
Speaker 1: and really needed them. They weren't just saying, hey, how
Speaker 1: many dimensions could we possibly come up with? Six? Sound good? Guys? Now,
Speaker 1: they needed a universe with this many dimensions for the
Speaker 1: math to to work. Yeah, essentially, And then if you
Speaker 1: if you go on to ten dimensions, well why not
Speaker 1: eleven dimensions because surely you've heard that, well, hey, it's
Speaker 1: not ten dimensions to eleven dimension guys. You know, Robert
Speaker 1: Nowlison what are you thinking, Well, sure, yes, there is
Speaker 1: in fact theory M theory and that say, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: eleven dimensions, and that what the M stands for mother
Speaker 1: or sometimes or the M stands for all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1: You can take it from mother or you. You can
Speaker 1: also take it from membrane. And if we if we
Speaker 1: go with membrane, then what that's referring to is at
Speaker 1: the heart of string theory are of course strings and
Speaker 1: strings being these tiny one dimensional strings. Like if you
Speaker 1: think about an atom as being kind of the smallest
Speaker 1: thing you can imagine a string um if an atom
Speaker 1: is the size of solar system, to borrow an analogy
Speaker 1: from elegant Universe, a string would be as large as
Speaker 1: a tree. Right. So, these very very tiny vibrating strings
Speaker 1: that are at the core of everything, of all matter,
Speaker 1: and they vibrate, and these one dimensional strings, their vibration
Speaker 1: are what gives matter it's unique properties, it's charged, it's
Speaker 1: it's being basically build their entire model the universe, or
Speaker 1: or continuing to try and build an entire model the
Speaker 1: universe that that flows out of this idea of tiny, tiny, tiny,
Speaker 1: tiny strings. Right, So the problem of string theory is that.
Speaker 1: Of course it's crazy complicated, but their rival string theories
Speaker 1: going on. There are as many as five string theories,
Speaker 1: one of which proposed twenty six different dimensions. Oh no,
Speaker 1: that's just ridiculous. I mean, so if you think we're
Speaker 1: getting crazy talking about ten or eleven dimensions, just put
Speaker 1: out their twenty six dimensions. They're so high maintenance. What's
Speaker 1: it like to date one of these guys. So the
Speaker 1: idea of M theory was to unite all these rival
Speaker 1: string theories under under M theory and the eleventh dimension.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of crazy. We we can do a
Speaker 1: separate podcast on the eleventh dimention if you guys are
Speaker 1: so interested, although of course it may require a little
Speaker 1: prep on our part. Yeah, I can't even imagine the
Speaker 1: Stanley we'd have to bring in for that, Like they'll
Speaker 1: they're just worth pointing out that F theory is looking
Speaker 1: which stands for either father or flat Stanley. No, just
Speaker 1: just stands for father, like F theories another string theory
Speaker 1: spinoff that's like involving twelve, And they're thinking there would
Speaker 1: be more like you know, when what on what stopped? Right?
Speaker 1: So the more research you do in two dimensions, the more.
Speaker 1: It does kind of seem as though, when will the
Speaker 1: number of dimensions stop? I mean, eleven seems like a
Speaker 1: good number. But here again we have um F theory.
Speaker 1: I mean, who knows how it's ultimately however, many dimensions
Speaker 1: they need to make the theory work, right, So there
Speaker 1: you have it. We have your three spatial dimensions that
Speaker 1: you guys know and love, right, plus the six spatial
Speaker 1: dimensions that are all curled up in those crazy collabio
Speaker 1: shapes that are at every point in space plus time.
Speaker 1: So we bring to you ten dimensions. Yeah, there you go,
Speaker 1: Flat Stanley, did you enjoy yourself? Oh? Man, he looks
Speaker 1: glazed over. I think he has kind of like a
Speaker 1: little half smile, and his arms are outstretched. It seems
Speaker 1: like he wants to hug us after that that podcast.
Speaker 1: Um dimensions. Sometimes, yeah, sometimes string theory makes you feel
Speaker 1: like you need a hug for sure. So do you
Speaker 1: have any listener mail? I do have a cool listener
Speaker 1: mail I just out today. Um this comes from Daniel
Speaker 1: and he writes, Hello Allison and Robert. Uh this is
Speaker 1: an ancient Zen story. Allow me to help you and
Speaker 1: you will surely drown. Set the monkey for the fish
Speaker 1: placing it safely up a tree. So, and then he asked,
Speaker 1: is it is it altruism if you try to help
Speaker 1: a fish without understanding the nature of the fish and
Speaker 1: end up killing the fish instead, Because in the story,
Speaker 1: the monkey's like, whoa, that fish is gonna drowning and
Speaker 1: put in a tree and now it'll be fine. Anyway,
Speaker 1: he says something to ponder Daniel. Right, So Daniel, of
Speaker 1: course is referencing our podcast on altruism in the Animal
Speaker 1: Kingdom and altruism in bacteria and that whole discovery. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that's right. Yeah, it's it's it's worth
Speaker 1: thinking about. Yeah, altruism, it gets kind of like where
Speaker 1: you're coming from, you know, it's like and oftentimes, you know,
Speaker 1: the best intentions sometimes wind up with horrible consequences. What
Speaker 1: a bright note to end on? Ye, Well that that
Speaker 1: wasn't really Daniel's intention. It was more just like sort
Speaker 1: of zen, you know, contemplation and not uh wow. We
Speaker 1: do sure do mess up things up sometimes as a species.
Speaker 1: So if you guys want to share his own story
Speaker 1: with us, or your thoughts on altruism or of course
Speaker 1: the dimensions that we covered today, do you send us
Speaker 1: an email. We love to hear from you or or
Speaker 1: stuff about Flat Stanley. I'm always especially flat stan flat
Speaker 1: Stanley pictures. I would love to see some Flat stan
Speaker 1: especially if it all relates to science, that would be
Speaker 1: pretty rad, or or if it relates to one of
Speaker 1: our topics I would love to see. I wonder if
Speaker 1: somebody's taken the taking Flat Stanley to the LHC. I
Speaker 1: bet he's been there probably, so it would be pretty
Speaker 1: easy for him to infiltrate just about anywhere. You know,
Speaker 1: you could just mail into places that actual flesh and
Speaker 1: blood humans could never get to. Right, he has amazing access.
Speaker 1: Flat Stanley is a spy, as a superspy, like you
Speaker 1: can get him the heads of state of celebrities. You
Speaker 1: know this goot. This guy has has ends. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: like we said, if you want to share Flat Stanley's
Speaker 1: adventures or talk about science in general, send us an
Speaker 1: email Science Stuff at how st first dot com or
Speaker 1: check out Facebook. Yeah yeah, we're on Facebook as stuff
Speaker 1: in the Science Lab, and you can find us on
Speaker 1: Twitter where we aren't Lab stuff, and we try and
Speaker 1: keep that updated pretty regularly with all sorts of cool stuff.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, thanks for listening. For more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot Com. Want more how stuff works, check out our
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