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data: the distance of the ant from the left (or the right) end of the hose. The upshot is that from a quarter of a mile away, a long
piece of garden hose appears to be a one-
dimensional object.

In reality, we know that the hose does have

thickness. You might have trouble resolving
this from a quarter mile, but by using a pair of
binoculars you can zoom in on the hose and
observe its girth directly, as shown in Figure
8.1(b). From this magnified perspective, you
see that a little ant living on the hose actually
has two independent directions in which it can
walk: along the left-right dimension spanning
the length of the hose as already identified, and
along the "clockwise-counterclockwise
dimension" around the circular part of the hose.
You now realize that to specify where the tiny
ant is at any given instant, you must actually
give two pieces of data: where the ant is along
the length of the hose, and where the ant is
along its circular girth. This reflects the fact the
surface of the garden hose is two-
dimensional.57
Figure 8.1 (a) A garden hose viewed from a substantial distance looks like a
Nonetheless, there is a clear difference between one-dimensional object. (b) When magnified, a second dimension—one that is
these two dimensions. The direction along the in the shape of a circle and is curled around the hose—becomes visible.
length of the hose is long, extended, and easily
visible. The direction circling around the thickness of the hose is
short, "curled up," and harder to see. To become aware of the circular
dimension, you have to examine the hose with significantly greater
precision.

This example underscores a subtle and important feature of spatial

dimensions: they come in two varieties. They can be large, extended,
and therefore directly manifest, or they can be small, curled up, and
much more difficult to detect. Of course, in this example you did not
have to exert a great deal of effort to reveal the "curled-up" dimension
encircling the thickness of the hose. You merely had to use a pair of
binoculars. However, if you had a very thin garden hose—as thin as a
hair or a capillary—detecting its curled-up dimension would be more Figure 8.2 The surface of the garden hose is two-
difficult. dimensional: one dimension (its horizontal extent),
emphasized by the straight arrow, is long and extended;
In a paper he sent to Einstein in 1919, Kaluza made an astounding the other dimension (its circular girth), emphasized by
suggestion. He proposed that the spatial fabric of the universe might the circular arrow, is short and curled up.
possess more than the three dimensions of common experience. The
motivation for this radical thesis, as we will discuss shortly, was Kaluza's realization that it provided an elegant and compelling
framework for weaving together Einstein's general relativity and Maxwell's electromagnetic theory into a single, unified conceptual
framework. But, more immediately, how can this proposal be squared with the apparent fact that we see precisely three spatial
dimensions?

The answer, implicit in Kaluza's work and subsequently made explicit and refined by the Swedish mathematician Oskar Klein in
1926, is that the spatial fabric of our universe may have both extended and curled-up dimensions. That is, just like the horizontal

57
This is a simple idea, but since the imprecision of common language can sometimes lead to confusion, two clarifying remarks are in order. First, we are assuming that the ant is
constrained to live on the surface of the garden hose. If, on the contrary, the ant could burrow into the interior of the hose—if it could penetrate into the rubber material of the hose—we
would need three numbers to specify its position, since we would need to also specify how deeply it had burrowed. But if the ant lives only on the hose's surface, its location can be
specified with just two numbers. This leads to our second point. Even with the ant living on the hose's surface, we could, if we so chose, specify its location with three numbers: the
ordinary left-right, back-forth, and up-down positions in our familiar three-dimensional space. But once we know that the ant lives on the surface of the hose, the two numbers referred to
in the text give the minimal data that uniquely specify the ant's position. This is what we mean by saying that the surface of the hose is two-dimensional.