# Higher Dimensions from Maxwell's Equations

1. Aug 27, 2011

### Ricky116

Hi, hopefully I have just a quick question (and I've asked it in the correct section).

I was watching a popular-science documentary (possibly horizon now that I'm thinking about it) where the concept of higher dimensions as string theory was being discussed.

Whilst it started with the usual look-at-a-telephone-line idea, there was then a fantastic conceptual explanation where it described where each extra (up to 10) dimension came from, and I was hoping someone would know what theory this is so I could wrap my head around it again.

Vaguely (and probably very very wrong) this is what it said:
It was visualised in a chart where for each known force, when you apply an equation to it (thinking curls and Maxwell's Equations here), it was found to be theoretically acting in another seperate spatial dimension. That made ~7 spatial dimensions total. The others then came from some kind of rotation of them. It was all seemingly produced quite beautifully from equations which seemed quite nice theoretically.

I've been thinking about that explanation for awhile because it was so elegantly (and at least conceptually) simple, but I haven't been able to find it and I want to see it more in-depth.