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FORGET Flatland, the two-dimensional world imagined in the 1884 novella by Edwin Abbott. On tiny scales, 3D space may give way to mere lines.

So say researchers working on theories of quantum gravity, which aim to unite quantum mechanics with general relativity. They have recently noticed that several different quantum gravity theories all predict the same strange behaviour at small scales: fields and particles start to behave as if space is one-dimensional.

The observation could help unite these disparate ideas. “There are some strange coincidences here that might be pointing toward something important,” says Steven Carlip at the University of …