FOOTBALLS failed, but apples could do the trick. Our universe could contain microscopic extra dimensions of space – shaped like apples. These extra dimensions could solve a mystery about fundamental particles.
Merab Gogberashvili at the Andronikashvili Institute of Physics in Tbilisi, Georgia, and colleagues were wondering why fundamental particles always come in threes. Electrons, muons and tau particles are very similar, differing only in their mass – forming three “generations” of a family. Neutrinos and quarks can also be grouped by mass into three generations.
In fact this could be an illusion, says Gogberashvili. What appears to be a family of particles…
