Calabi-Yau Manifold

A Calabi-Yau manifold is a mathematical, six-dimensional construction used by theoretical physicists to describe parts of nature that are too small to see with the human eye.

According to Superstring Theory, spacetime as we know it is not four-dimensional (three space directions and one time direction) but ten-dimensional. So the question is, where are the extra six dimensions? One answer is that they are 'compactified' or, in other words, rolled up into such a small shape that they are unobservable by humans. Calabi-Yau manifolds may be that submicroscopic shape.

Moreover, Superstring Theory proposes that the very fundamental constituents of reality that make up the ten dimensions of the universe are 'strings'. The best way to understand Superstring Theory is by way of an analogy: think of a guitar string that has been tuned by stretching the string under tension across the guitar. Depending on how the string is plucked and how much tension is in the string, different musical notes will be created by the string. Every string has a unique vibration or harmonic; different harmonics determine different fundamental forces and thus the very makeup of the physical world, including Calabi-Yau manifolds.

Sadly, the theory is not as watertight as some would hope - there are currently five superstring theories on offer and the hunt is still on for the Mother of all Theories, even a Grand Unified Theory (GUT) of everything. Indeed, experiments conducted within the Large Hadron Collider at CERN are expected to provide evidence of the existence or non-existence of the infamous Higgs boson particle, dubbed as the God Particle by the media, which would further aid scientists in their interpretation of Superstring Theory and refining their understanding of the universe.

Other variations include the Unified Field Theory, for which Albert Einstein famously spent the last two decades of his life searching. Instead of resonating strings, the deepest level of the universe comprises a field of potential energy, akin to David Bohm's holomovement, where gravity, electromagnetism and all the nuclear forces are united at the Planck Scale where time and space and causality all come together, like ripples on an ocean of infinite being, of totality, of limitless information and intelligence.

With evidence coming from the CERN Collider of particles travelling faster than the speed of light, something which Einstein said was not possible, we wait with bated breath the next big scientific breakthrough.