Uploaded March 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Speaker: Achim Kempf (University of Waterloo & Perimeter Institute)
Abstract: There are reasons to expect that spacetime might change dimension at sufficiently high energies or at least that, at energies as high as the Planck scale, spacetime might emerge from an essentially non-geometric structure. The question is, how the phenomena of the emergence of spacetime, and possibly also its change(s) of dimension, could be described mathematically. I am proposing that the physics of the emergence of spacetime, and possible dimension change, could correspond to a mathematical structure that possesses different mathematical representations in different regimes. In the concrete approach that I will present, the number of spacetime dimensions is found to be determined by the balance of a generalized bosonic pull and a fermionic push. This balance depends on the number of bosonic and fermionic species present at a given mass scale, which then accounts for the changing of dimensions with energy and also allows for non-geometric regimes. The proposed approach is entirely information theoretic.
Speaker: Achim Kempf (University of Waterloo & Perimeter Institute)
Abstract: There are reasons to expect that spacetime might change dimension at sufficiently high energies or at least that, at energies as high as the Planck scale, spacetime might emerge from an essentially non-geometric structure. The question is, how the phenomena of the emergence of spacetime, and possibly also its change(s) of dimension, could be described mathematically. I am proposing that the physics of the emergence of spacetime, and possible dimension change, could correspond to a mathematical structure that possesses different mathematical representations in different regimes. In the concrete approach that I will present, the number of spacetime dimensions is found to be determined by the balance of a generalized bosonic pull and a fermionic push. This balance depends on the number of bosonic and fermionic species present at a given mass scale, which then accounts for the changing of dimensions with energy and also allows for non-geometric regimes. The proposed approach is entirely information theoretic.
