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Gravity Probe B

Testing Einstein's Universe

Special & General Relativity Questions and Answers

Does space have more than 3 dimensions?

Outside the atom, space has three large spatial dimensions to better than 1 part in 10 billion based on how gravity acts compared to how general relativity in 3-d space says it should. Inside the atom, at scales smaller than the nucleus of an atom, we don't know, but theorists searching for a Theory of Everything, seem to like the idea that there could be lots of microscopic, quantum dimensions to each point in 3-d space. There is no observational evidence for this, unless it is right there in front of us and we just can't see it!!!


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All answers are provided by Dr. Sten Odenwald (Raytheon STX) for the NASA Astronomy Cafe, part of the NASA Education and Public Outreach program.