Been trying to read up on your baby there. Gotta admit, the full 26-dimension prototype (and all the theory to get there) is practically incomprehensible to be. The word 'abstract' doesn't do it justice. But i tried to follow along. When the article got down to describing Compaction... a visual of the concept slowly formed in my brane [sic]:
Originally Posted By: Sunil Mukhi 1999
Compactification.
Finally, we turn to the relationship between the 10-dimensional world described above, (with 9 spatial and 1 time dimension) and the real 4-dimensional world (3 spatial and 1 time dimension) that we inhabit. The key requirement is that the 9 spatial dimensions that we start with should not all be physically observable. In the spirit of Kaluza and Klein, we therefore assume that 6 spatial dimensions are "curled up" on themselves, while the remaining 3 dimensions extend to infinity (or at least to very large distances). The concept of "space" is embodied in mathematics by the notion of a "manifold", something that locally looks like familiar space but may have curvature and other nontrivial properties. In particular, a manifold that is "curled up" in the way that we desire is called "compact". Thus, the most straightforward way to connect string theory to the real world is to postulate that 6 spatial dimensions form a compact manifold, whose size is so small that we are unable to detect its existence directly with the probes available to us.
Expressed that way, i can begin to see how the 10 dimensional model is more comfortable (sincerely, no sarcasm intended there). Interesting that time is always one-dimensional. Or perhaps that was God's plan? OOOOPS... i meant Nature's Way.
