The idea: stop describing every dimension with questions written for space. Sort dimensions into groups, give every group the same neutral questions, and let each group add its own native questions. Gaps and unanswered rows become visible.

The framework is exploratory. The contents of each card carry their own tags — most are mainstream physics.

Space

x · y · z Established

What varies along it?: Position
What can't happen in it?: Nothing forbidden
What is conserved because of it?: Momentum
Do observers disagree about it?: Yes — rotations and motion mix them
Where does it change type or vanish?: Swaps role with time inside a black hole
How do we access it?: Senses, rulers, light

Three interchangeable copies of one thing. 'Length, width, depth' are labels from the human body.

Curled extra dimensions Speculative

What varies along it?: Position around a tiny loop
What can't happen in it?: Large motion
What is conserved because of it?: Charge (in Kaluza–Klein)
Do observers disagree about it?: —
Where does it change type or vanish?: Too small to see
How do we access it?: Only indirectly: heavy particle 'towers'

Kaluza–Klein, string theory.

Large / warped extra dimension Speculative

What varies along it?: Distance off our 3D 'sheet'
What can't happen in it?: Light and matter can't enter
What is conserved because of it?: —
Do observers disagree about it?: —
Where does it change type or vanish?: Our brane is its boundary
How do we access it?: Only through gravity

ADD, Randall–Sundrum, DGP. Tested: gravity's law holds to tens of micrometres.

Questions native to Space:

Can you rest in it?
Can you return to a point?
Are its members interchangeable?

Time

Direction Established

What varies along it?: Before → after
What can't happen in it?: Going back
What is conserved because of it?: Energy
Do observers disagree about it?: Yes — the order of distant events depends on motion
Where does it change type or vanish?: Becomes space-like at the Hartle–Hawking origin; swaps with space in black holes
How do we access it?: Clocks, memory, entropy

The one member we know. Its one-way character is hole H3.

Texture Hypothesis

What varies along it?: Smooth ↔ turbulent; continuous ↔ grainy; predictable ↔ random
What can't happen in it?: ?
What is conserved because of it?: ?
Do observers disagree about it?: ?
Where does it change type or vanish?: ?
How do we access it?: Ultra-precise clock noise, if anything

An exploratory candidate from this project. Echoes: spacetime foam, Oppenheim's wobble.

A second time axis Speculative

What varies along it?: A second before/after
What can't happen in it?: Stable prediction from the present alone
What is conserved because of it?: A second energy-like quantity
Do observers disagree about it?: —
Where does it change type or vanish?: Constraints can collapse it to one effective time (Bars)
How do we access it?: None yet

Bars, Pettini, Kletetschka. See the Two Films lab.

Questions native to Time:

Persistence — what stays the same thing through it?
Accumulation — what builds up along it (records, memory, entropy)?
Loss of possibility — how many futures become one past?

Internal (charge)

Electromagnetic circle Established

What varies along it?: A phase — a direction around a circle
What can't happen in it?: —
What is conserved because of it?: Electric charge
Do observers disagree about it?: No
Where does it change type or vanish?: —
How do we access it?: Light and charged particles

Gauge theory: light is the ripple of this hidden circle's geometry, as gravity is the ripple of spacetime's. Whether it is a 'real' dimension is open.

Weak (3) and strong (8) Established

What varies along it?: Directions in larger internal spaces
What can't happen in it?: —
What is conserved because of it?: Weak isospin; colour charge
Do observers disagree about it?: No
Where does it change type or vanish?: The weak one 'freezes' via the Higgs
How do we access it?: Particle colliders

The standard model's structure.

Questions native to Internal (charge):

Which forces live here?
What particles carry it?

Scale

The holographic direction Contested

What varies along it?: Zoom level (energy scale)
What can't happen in it?: —
What is conserved because of it?: —
Do observers disagree about it?: —
Where does it change type or vanish?: At the boundary it stops being a place and becomes an energy scale
How do we access it?: Only in theory (AdS/CFT)

In holography, moving 'inward' in one dimension means zooming into the boundary. Links to 'space from entanglement'. (Separate result: in CDT and other quantum-gravity approaches, spacetime's effective dimension drops to about 2 at the smallest scales — see the Atlas.)

Questions native to Scale:

What changes as you zoom?

State

Quantum possibility space Established

What varies along it?: Which state, not where
What can't happen in it?: —
What is conserved because of it?: Probability (total stays 1)
Do observers disagree about it?: Yes — Wigner's-friend scenarios
Where does it change type or vanish?: Collapses on measurement (or branches)
How do we access it?: Interference experiments

Enormous numbers of dimensions of possibility, all run on one borrowed time parameter — hole H2.

Questions native to State:

Is it a place, or a list of possibilities?

Facts without a dimension — the unassigned column

In a data model, facts with no matching dimension key are the classic sign that a dimension is missing. About 95% of the universe is here.

Anomaly	Size	Why it's unassigned
Dark energy	~68% of the universe	Acceleration measured; no known dimension or particle explains it. Candidates: vacuum (H9), leakage to a 5th dimension (DGP), a timing illusion (timescape).
Dark matter	~27%	Gravity measured many ways; nothing seen. Candidates: new particles, particles moving in curled dimensions, modified gravity.
The Hubble tension	67 vs 73 (km/s per megaparsec)	The expansion rate disagrees between methods (H10).
The 'now'	—	Experienced by every observer; absent from every equation (H4).

Framework · working draft

Dimension Map

◌ Exploratory Hypothesis

Each group is a column. Each card is a candidate member, scored on the same six neutral questions.

Space and Time are different kinds of group — which is why physicists write 3 + 1, not 4. The Internal group is where light lives: in gauge theory, light is the ripple of a hidden circle's geometry, just as gravity is the ripple of spacetime's. That's the most solid version of "light and gravity are more alike than different".

Question marks are the point. The Texture card is almost all "?" — that's what a genuinely new idea looks like before anyone has tested it.

Open for editing: add groups, cards or native questions in src/docs.js.

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