An article posted in the Technology and Science section of msnbc.com indicates that physicists are currently trying to discover the fifth (and even the sixth, seventh, or eighth) dimension with new breakthrough technologies.
It has been claimed that there are four dimensions – the three spatial dimensions and the fourth one being time. However, physicists claim that there are more dimensions that make up our universe. The two leading physicists that support this theory are Lisa Randall from Harvard University and Raman Sundrum from John Hopkins University. Randall and Sundrum’s theories help provide explanations for some of the most profound scientific dilemmas since Einstein’s time.
The lightness of gravity
The weakness of gravity was always a mystery to physicists. In Randall’s book called Warped Passages, she states, “A tiny magnet can lift a paper clip, even though all the mass of the earth is pulling it in the opposite direction.”
By having more dimensions, string theorists – physicists that believe that the building blocks of all the matter in the universe are string-like particles vibrating with their own frequencies – can create formulas and equations that could explain the weakness of gravity.
Smashing particles
With new technology like a new underground particle accelerator, new dimensions could be discovered. New dimensions are hard to detect due to our inability to see them – our human eyes can only perceive the three spatial dimensions. The underground particle accelerator would be able to show the new dimension – the evidence would be a new class of particles that had the same charge as the normal particles but with extra mass. This extra mass indicates that the particles gained extra momentum that propelled them into the fifth dimension.
It seems like in the immediate future, the fifth, sixth or even the eleventh dimension could be discovered. The physics that we come to learn today might be obsolete and so it seems like those science fiction books that people read might be true after all!
