By the dawn of the twentieth century, more than two centuries had elapsed since the publication of Isaac Newton's (1642-1727) Principia, which set forth the foundations of classical physics. During those intervening centuries, scientists embraced empiricism and sought new and ingenious ways to understand the physical world. In addition to fueling industrial revolutions in Europe and the United States, that same persistence and technological inventiveness allowed scientists to make increasingly exquisite and delicate calculations regarding physical phenomena. Advances in mathematics, especially during the nineteenth century, allowed the development of sophisticated models of nature that became accepted as a common language of science.

More tantalizingly, many of these mathematical insights pointed toward a physical reality not necessarily limited to three dimensions and not necessarily absolute in time and space. On top of a steady tempo of refinement and discovery there emerged a new...