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"[@redweasel":](/1385850#comment_7276124
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M theory (most modern and best iteration of Superstring Theory) postulates that we don't physically observe higher dimensions because all baryonic matter is confined to the brane that is our universe - in our case, it's a 3-dimensional brane in a 10 dimensional space (with the 11th as time).


 
Though the fact that gravity also falls off with the inverse-square law would indicate the higher dimensions are still curled up, just that they could still be as large as - millimeters, I think? Though I think the LHC has made that way smaller, source I read that from was written before the Higgs was observed.


 
But anyhoot, knots not untying themselves is just one of many examples. Proteins and such wouldn't work, either. But even then, there's a good physical model where the only constraint on the size of the dimensions is the inverse-square behavior of _*gravity_*.


 
It's pedantic, but you could make a similar argument for large higher dimensions that we can't move through or observe at all, even with gravity. But then that'd be metaphysics/philosophy, unless you had a good justification for including it in some testable theory.
 
Though I enjoy metaphysics sometimes, too :q

"@redweasel":/1385850#comment_7276124
M theory (most modern and best iteration of Superstring Theory) postulates that we don't physically observe higher dimensions because all baryonic matter is confined to the brane that is our universe - in our case, it's a 3-dimensional brane in a 10 dimensional space (with the 11th as time).

Though the fact that gravity also falls off with the inverse-square law would indicate the higher dimensions are still curled up, just that they could still be as large as - millimeters, I think? Though I think the LHC has made that way smaller, source I read that from was written before the Higgs was observed.

But anyhoot, knots not untying themselves is just one of many examples. Proteins and such wouldn't work, either. But even then, there's a good physical model where the only constraint on the size of the dimensions is the inverse-square behavior of _gravity_.

It's pedantic, but you could make a similar argument for large higher dimensions that we can't move through at all. But then that'd be metaphysics/philosophy, unless you had a good justification for including it in some testable theory.

"@redweasel":/1385850#comment_7276124
M theory (most modern and best iteration of Superstring Theory) postulates that we don't physically observe higher dimensions because all baryonic matter is confined to the brane that is our universe - in our case, it's a 3-dimensional brane in a 10 dimensional space (with the 11th as time).

Though the fact that gravity also falls off with the inverse-square law would indicate the higher dimensions are still curled up, just that they could still be as large as - millimeters, I think? Though I think the LHC has made that way smaller.

But anyhoot, knots not untying themselves is just one of many examples. Proteins and such wouldn't work, either. But even then, there's a good physical model where the only constraint on the size of the dimensions is the inverse-square behavior of _gravity_.

It's pedantic, but you could make a similar argument for large higher dimensions that we can't move through at all. But then that'd be metaphysics/philosophy, unless you had a good justification for including it in some testable theory.