Time has 3 dimensions and that explains particle masses, physicist claims

TL;DR

Force dilution laws (like 1/r²) are tied to how interactions spread through spatial geometry, not to how they evolve in time.

Briefing Cornell Notes

Briefing

A claim that “time has three dimensions” is being promoted as a way to explain particle masses, but the core physics problem is straightforward: forces dilute with spatial dimension, not temporal dimension. In familiar Newtonian gravity and Coulomb’s law, the inverse-square falloff (1/r²) comes from how force lines spread through space—specifically, the surface area of a sphere grows like r². If the world had four spatial dimensions, the same reasoning would give an inverse-cube law (1/r³). That logic can be reversed: by tracking how interactions spread (or how randomly moving particles spread), one can infer the effective dimensionality of space via the “spectral dimension.” The upshot is that dilution behavior points to spatial dimensions, while ordinary forces do not “dilute in time,” leaving no physical basis for multiple time coordinates in the way the headline suggests.

The criticism sharpens when the mass-reproduction proposal is examined at the level of basic quantum mechanics and relativity. The argument relies on normalizing a wave function to one in spacetime with three time dimensions, but probability normalization is defined over space at a given time: the total probability of finding a particle somewhere in space must sum to one and remain one as time evolves. Normalizing in time instead has no clear physical meaning. The framework also reportedly produces “conservation laws” that are “uncontracted,” implying they fail to conserve anything in the usual sense.

Relativistic consistency is another flashpoint. The proposal is said to misunderstand Lorentz invariance, to treat the graviton propagator as a scalar, and to claim that a “six-dimensional spacetime” naturally reduces to standard Minkowski spacetime when two temporal dimensions become “negligible.” That phrase is treated as meaningless: what does it mean for a time dimension to become negligible, and how does such a limit preserve the structure required by relativity and quantum theory? The critique concludes that the paper’s mathematical steps amount to “rubbish,” not a viable route to the Standard Model.

Despite the technical objections, the idea gained attention through a press-release pathway. A single author’s paper—described as published in a “low-quality journal”—was followed by outreach to a university PR office, which then amplified the claim widely. The response argues that the scientific community could dismiss the work quickly, but public messaging turned a flawed proposal into a headline. The overall message is that the “three times” idea fails both on dimensional reasoning (forces dilute in space, not time) and on the internal consistency checks that any candidate theory must pass: probability normalization, conservation structure, and Lorentz-invariant dynamics.

Cornell Notes

The “three dimensions of time” proposal is criticized as physically inconsistent. Dimensional reasoning from Newton’s law and Coulomb’s law ties inverse-square (1/r²) force falloff to how field lines spread across spatial dimensions; forces do not dilute in time, so time should remain one-dimensional in this framework. The mass-reproduction paper is also faulted for basic quantum and relativistic issues, including improper wave-function normalization (probability should be normalized over space at fixed time), problematic conservation-law claims, and misunderstandings of Lorentz invariance. Additional claims—like reducing a six-dimensional spacetime to standard Minkowski spacetime when extra time dimensions become “negligible”—are treated as undefined and mathematically unsupported. The result is that the headline rests on a concept that fails standard consistency checks.

Why does Newton’s inverse-square law point to spatial dimensions rather than time dimensions?

In Newtonian gravity and Coulomb’s law, the strength of the force from a spherical source falls as 1/r² because force lines spread outward over the surface of a sphere. In three spatial dimensions, the sphere’s surface area scales like r², so the same total “flux” is distributed over an area that grows as r². If space had four dimensions, the relevant “surface” would scale differently (like r³), producing an inverse-cube law (1/r³). This reasoning links the dilution of interactions to spatial dimensionality, not to how time evolves.

What is the “spectral dimension,” and how does it relate to inferring dimensionality?

The spectral dimension is an effective dimensionality inferred from how diffusion-like processes spread—such as randomly moving particles or the behavior of propagators—rather than from geometric intuition alone. It can even take non-integer values, which makes it useful for fractal or fractal-like geometries. In ordinary settings, it often matches the familiar topological dimension (the “Hausdorff dimension”), but it provides a way to connect observed spreading/dilution behavior to dimensionality.

Why is normalizing a wave function over spacetime with three time dimensions criticized?

Quantum probability is normalized over space at a fixed time: the probability of finding a particle somewhere in space must sum to one, and that normalization should remain one as time progresses. Normalizing “to one in spacetime” (including time coordinates) is treated as physically nonsensical because probability is not something that should be distributed over time in the same way it is over space.

What does “uncontracted conservation laws” imply in this critique?

Conservation laws in physics typically involve contracted forms (e.g., divergences like ∂_μ T^{μν} = 0) that guarantee conserved quantities. The critique claims the proposal’s conservation laws are “uncontracted,” meaning they do not take the correct form to enforce conservation. As a result, they allegedly “don’t conserve anything,” undermining the model’s physical consistency.

Why is Lorentz invariance central to evaluating a multi-time theory?

Lorentz invariance constrains how space and time coordinates transform and how relativistic dynamics must behave. The critique says the proposal misunderstands Lorentz invariance, which would be fatal for any theory aiming to reproduce known relativistic physics. It also alleges additional inconsistencies, such as treating the graviton propagator as a scalar, which conflicts with expected tensor structure in gravity-related field theories.

What problem arises from the claim that extra time dimensions become “negligible”?

The critique argues that the phrase “temporal dimension becomes negligible” has no clear meaning. A limit that removes or suppresses time dimensions must be precisely defined mathematically and physically—how the theory’s equations change, how symmetries behave, and how the resulting dynamics match Minkowski spacetime. Without a well-defined mechanism, the reduction claim is treated as undefined and therefore unsupported.

Review Questions

How does the spreading of force lines in a spherical geometry connect to the inverse-square law, and how would that reasoning change in different spatial dimensions?
What distinguishes correct wave-function normalization in quantum mechanics (space at fixed time) from normalization over time coordinates?
What consistency checks—probability normalization, conservation-law structure, and Lorentz invariance—would a credible multi-time theory need to satisfy?

Key Points

1
Force dilution laws (like 1/r²) are tied to how interactions spread through spatial geometry, not to how they evolve in time.
2
The inverse-square falloff in gravity and electricity follows from the r² scaling of a sphere’s surface area in three spatial dimensions.
3
The spectral dimension offers a way to infer effective dimensionality from spreading/diffusion behavior, including in non-integer (fractal) settings.
4
Probability normalization in quantum mechanics is over space at a given time; normalizing over time coordinates is physically unjustified.
5
A viable relativistic theory must respect Lorentz invariance; misapplying it undermines the model’s consistency.
6
Claims that extra time dimensions “become negligible” require a precise, well-defined limiting procedure; vague suppression language is not enough.
7
Public attention can amplify flawed theoretical work when press releases outpace technical scrutiny.

Highlights

Inverse-square force laws arise because force lines spread over a sphere whose surface area grows like r² in three spatial dimensions.

Probability normalization belongs over space at fixed time; normalizing over spacetime (including time coordinates) has no standard physical meaning.

Reducing a six-dimensional spacetime to Minkowski spacetime by making extra time dimensions “negligible” is treated as undefined and therefore not a real derivation.

Dimensionality can be inferred from how spreading processes behave via the spectral dimension, which often matches the Hausdorff dimension in ordinary cases.

Topics

Multi-Time Physics
Dimensional Analysis
Spectral Dimension
Lorentz Invariance
Wave-Function Normalization

Mentioned

Sabine Hossenfelder