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Invisibleivi
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A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional
    #4619307 - 09/04/05 12:10 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Dark matter highlights extra dimensions
Three new 'directions' could explain astronomical puzzle.

Welcome to the fourth dimension. And the fifth, and the sixth. A team of astrophysicists claims to have identified evidence that space is six-dimensional.

Joseph Silk of the University of Oxford, UK, and his co-workers say that these extra spatial dimensions can be inferred from the perplexing behaviour of dark matter. This mysterious stuff cannot be seen, but its presence in galaxies is betrayed by the gravitational tug that it exerts on visible stars.

Silk and his colleagues looked at how dark matter behaves differently in small galaxies and large clusters of galaxies. In the smaller ones, dark matter seems to be attracted to itself quite strongly. But in the large galactic clusters this doesn't seem to be the case: strongly interacting dark matter should produce cores of dark material bigger than those that are actually there, as deduced from the way the cluster spins.

One explanation, they say, is that three extra dimensions, in addition to the three spatial ones to which we are accustomed, are altering the effects of gravity over very short distances of about a nanometre1.

The team argues that such astronomical observations of dark matter provide the first potential evidence for extra dimensions. Others are supportive, but unconvinced. Lisa Randall, a Harvard physicist who has explored the possibility of extra spatial dimensions, says "Even if their idea works, which it probably does, it may be an overstatement to use these observations as evidence of extra dimensions."

Silk himself acknowledges that the proposal is "extremely speculative".

Too small to see

Physicists have suspected for years that 'hidden' dimensions exist, largely because they seem to be predicted by string theory, the current favourite for a theory of fundamental subatomic particles.

These extra dimensions are generally thought to be tiny: many billions of times smaller than atoms. This would make these dimensions very hard to detect, explaining why the Universe looks as if it has just three. Physicists such as Randall, however, have proposed that some extra dimensions might be relatively big, but inaccessible to us.

The extra dimensions that Silk and colleagues say they have identified are likewise 'big', at about a nanometre across. In other words, they say, the Universe is only about a nanometre wide in these three 'directions'.

They argue that the force of gravity does not obey Isaac Newton's famous laws over small distances, where these dimensions come into play. This has never been tested experimentally: no one has measured how gravity behaves over distances below about a hundredth of a millimetre.

Dark stranger

This variation in gravity, says Silk, could be why dark matter behaves differently in different galactic environments.

According to one interpretation of the astronomical observations, dark matter, which is thought to account for 85% of all the mass in the Universe but not to be made from the known fundamental particles, seems to attract itself through some unknown force. And this attraction seems to be stronger in dwarf galaxies than in galactic clusters. This is very odd: it is rather as if apples were to fall faster from single trees than from trees in an orchard.

But the attraction isn't due to an unknown force, argue Silk and his colleagues, but to the effect of extra dimensions on gravity. And because dark matter particles are accelerated to higher speeds in massive galactic clusters than in dwarf galaxies, they spend less time close to each other, so the effects of these extra dimensions are felt less.

Radical answer

There are other ways of explaining the puzzling dark-matter distributions, admits Silk's colleague Ue-Li Pen of the University of Toronto in Canada. For example, one could assume that the rate at which stars explode, as supernovae, was quite different in the past.

"Personally, I think changing the supernovae rate is more conservative than changing the number of spatial dimensions," Pen confesses. But he thinks that invoking extra dimensions is such an exciting idea that it is worth investigating, "even if it is a long shot".

The most popular versions of string theory suggest that there are as many as eight extra dimensions, not just three. But thankfully this needn't be a problem. There's no reason why, in addition to the three large extra dimensions predicted by Silk and colleagues, there might not be several other small ones too.

References

1. Qin B., et al. Arxiv, Preprint at http://xxx.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0508572 (2005).



http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050829/full/050829-18.html


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Offlinepsychomime
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: ivi]
    #4623686 - 09/05/05 06:51 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

very interesting. though one wonders if extra dimensions are not analogous to the concept of the "ether" that was theorised before the discovery of electromagnetism.

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Offline001
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: psychomime]
    #4628227 - 09/06/05 11:36 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

dimensions are relative to the observer. There are as many dimensions as one has sensories to detect. these scientists should really pull their head out of the stars and gain some common sense on what they're studying.

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: 001]
    #4628831 - 09/07/05 04:46 AM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

dimensions are relative to the observer. There are as many dimensions as one has sensories to detect. these scientists should really pull their head out of the stars and gain some common sense on what they're studying.




Uh... ok... I would recommend that you take a few physics courses if you are going to debate physics...

Quote:

analogous to the concept of the "ether" that was theorised before the discovery of electromagnetism.




I have often thought about that when reading about dark matter/energy in general. It seems to me that we are making up a new substance to balance out broken equations rather than understanding why the equations are broken in the first place. I wonder if the "dark solution" will be as big of a discovery as relativity (the "ether" solution)?


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Offline001
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: Seuss]
    #4629432 - 09/07/05 11:00 AM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Uh... ok... I would recommend that you take a few physics courses if you are going to debate physics...




this isnt really a matter of physics as it is a matter of philosophy. To anyone who has taken the time to ponder the basis of reality, and with our current ability to sense things that we dont normally sense using machines, one can conclude that reality in all its dimensions is only observed because of the capacity of the observer. We will only ever understand 3 dimensions, because that is the property of reality that our brain is built off of. In other words, our hardware can only percieve the [laws of] reality that it was built on.

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: 001]
    #4633075 - 09/08/05 06:09 AM (18 years, 6 months ago)

> this isnt really a matter of physics as it is a matter of philosophy.

But this isn't the Spirituality and Philosophy forum, it is the Science and Technology forum.

> We will only ever understand 3 dimensions

Good thing that time doesn't exist then...


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OfflineLiquidSmoke
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: Seuss]
    #4633305 - 09/08/05 09:24 AM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Some people argue that quantum relativity is the 5th dimension as well...


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"Shmokin' weed, Shmokin' wizz, doin' coke, drinkin' beers.  Drinkin' beers beers beers, rollin' fatties, smokin' blunts.  Who smokes tha blunts?  We smoke the blunts" - Jay and Silent Bob strike Back

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Offline001
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: LiquidSmoke]
    #4633898 - 09/08/05 01:06 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Good thing that time doesn't exist then...




Im glad we can agree that time doesnt exist. I was thinking about the whole 3 dimensional idea, and the basic concept has no ground. what are we basing this off of? the abstract concepts of 1 and 2 demensional geometries? the only way true 1 and 2 demensional figures can exist is within computer simulations, but even that is just a illusion created on a flat screen by 3 dimensional atoms.

so that leaves us with there only really being one observable dimension within our reality, aside from what we observe on the quantum level. And once again we base the 3d theory of the ideas of X,Y,Z, but what is X,Y,Z in relation to the infinite void were suspended in? So our we saying, "our reality must be 3 dimensional because we can visualize the abstract concepts of no-length/no-depth(1d), and length/no-depth(2d)"?

these scientists are going to have to take alot more drugs before they can begin to grasp what their trying to explain.

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Invisiblemantis
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: 001]
    #4635143 - 09/08/05 07:02 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

001 said:
these scientists are going to have to take alot more drugs before they can begin to grasp what their trying to explain.



:shake:


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OfflineLiquidSmoke
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: mantis]
    #4636178 - 09/08/05 11:15 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

i love the entire

"hippy on LSD knows all the secrets of the world" than someone whose devoted their lives to actually studying the fundamental systematics of provable, tangible data.


--------------------
"Shmokin' weed, Shmokin' wizz, doin' coke, drinkin' beers.  Drinkin' beers beers beers, rollin' fatties, smokin' blunts.  Who smokes tha blunts?  We smoke the blunts" - Jay and Silent Bob strike Back

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: LiquidSmoke]
    #4636968 - 09/09/05 05:09 AM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

"hippy on LSD knows all the secrets of the world" than someone whose devoted their lives to actually studying the fundamental systematics of provable, tangible data.




Richard Feynman (won the physics Nobel prize) has a nice lecture about this. He calls it "voodoo science". Not the drug use hippy part, but non-scientist types trying to use philosophy to explain science. If you have a copy of his lecture notes, it is a very amusing read... assuming that you are not a philosopher trying to explain science.

Quote:

Im glad we can agree that time doesnt exist.




If time doesn't exist, then space also doesn't exist and your argument falls to shreds. In physics, using mathematics, time is represented as the fourth dimension in an equation. For example, a Lorentz transform is applied to x, y, z, and t and shows the relationship between time and space. Don't confuse the tool that science uses to explain a concept with whatever you remember from sesame street. My original observation holds... take a few college physics classes if you are going to intelligently debate the topic.


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Offline001
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: Seuss]
    #4637957 - 09/09/05 01:14 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

If time doesn't exist, then space also doesn't exist




let me phrase what i said more clearly, time as an illusion does exist in our eyes, but time is only an illusion, nothing more. But could you explain your reasoning on how time and space seem to hold eachother together?

yeah, i dont know much about the hippy taking LSD. Tried that stuff once, worthless.

lol, i love the logical type, their so blinded by their arrogance to even admit for once that they might just be wrong. no doubt science has taught us alot about our observable reality, but for scientists to say that all that we observe simply is, that a quark is the smallest unit of energy, or that space is truly infinite and theirs no "otherside", is just a case of one's own head being stuck up one's own ass. How many years did it take for scientists to realize that the earth wasn't flat, and that the sun didn't orbit around the earth? Theres nothing new under the sun, every leading scientist of his day will think that what he believes to be true is undoubltably so, and that no "lsd taking hippy" will ever be able to compete with him in the realm of abstract reality-theory/philosophy.

so just because a person wins a prize, that makes his opinions on things he couldn't possibly understand more valid than the next mans? Oh, how you can make and break men with ribbons and trophies.

could you show me where i can aquire this lecture on voodoo science? i would like to hear what this guy has to say. i hope he doesnt use too many big words, you know us dumb common folk cant understand polysyllabic words too well.

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: 001]
    #4638273 - 09/09/05 02:34 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

> would you show me where i can aquire this lecture on voodoo science?

It is either in The six not so easy pieces or Surely your joking, Mr. Feynman... both writen by Richard Feynman. The six not so easy pieces is actually taken from the Feynman Lectures, a set of books written by Feynman on teaching physics (actually, his lecture notes).

The six not so easy pieces is a pretty difficult read mostly dealing with relativity and curved space. The second book, Surely your joking, Mr. Feyman is a light and easy to read collection of non-fiction short stories. This is the more likely source, but it has been a while since I read it last.

Edit: Found it online... http://www.physics.brocku.ca/etc/cargo_cult_science.html

> you know us dumb common folk cant understand polysyllabic words too well.

You seem to have a fine vocabulary. An open mind is not a dumb mind.


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Invisiblemantis
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: LiquidSmoke]
    #4641711 - 09/10/05 11:17 AM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

LiquidSmoke said:
i love the entire

"hippy on LSD knows all the secrets of the world" than someone whose devoted their lives to actually studying the fundamental systematics of provable, tangible data.



I came so close to physically bashing my head against the wall.


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OfflinePuppet1
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: mantis]
    #4642009 - 09/10/05 12:31 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

mantis said:
Quote:

LiquidSmoke said:
i love the entire

"hippy on LSD knows all the secrets of the world" than someone whose devoted their lives to actually studying the fundamental systematics of provable, tangible data.



I came so close to physically bashing my head against the wall.




yeah, you better watch out for those philosophical thinkers, their unique ideas couldnt possibly compare to that of a person who's learned everything they know out of a book.

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OfflineLiquidSmoke
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: Puppet1]
    #4642381 - 09/10/05 01:56 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

There's a huge difference between a theorist and a scientist.

One just comes up with ideas which no evidence or basis other than to sway away from a common school of thought. It's no different than this "intelligent design" creationism bullshit.

The other actually goes out seeking solid evidence to try and prove or disprove those theories.

They're called "experiments".


The egos of some psycadelic drug users truely astounds me...



Science, these "books" are the progress of knowledge of our known universe. Sure it is limited simply to our perceptions. But that is not to say we have gained a greater understanding of things. Science has allowed us to manipulate various aspects of the world, predict chemical reactions, tap into all sorts of patterns and mathematical correlations which help us better understand the universe we live in.

It is how we've developed technological advances, such as chemical synthesis, mechanical construction, and medicine.

You can't just simplify such a vast, diverse, accomplished, lasting school of thought as "limited based on perception" without even trying to explore how we've come this far. That's just arrogance.

Edited by LiquidSmoke (09/10/05 02:09 PM)

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OfflineLiquidSmoke
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: 001]
    #4642483 - 09/10/05 02:35 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

001 said:


lol, i love the logical type, their so blinded by their arrogance to even admit for once that they might just be wrong. no doubt science has taught us alot about our observable reality, but for scientists to say that all that we observe simply is, that a quark is the smallest unit of energy, or that space is truly infinite and theirs no "otherside", is just a case of one's own head being stuck up one's own ass. How many years did it take for scientists to realize that the earth wasn't flat, and that the sun didn't orbit around the earth? Theres nothing new under the sun, every leading scientist of his day will think that what he believes to be true is undoubltably so, and that no "lsd taking hippy" will ever be able to compete with him in the realm of abstract reality-theory/philosophy.








You obviously don't even follow science. You're basically saying that scientists proclaim their knowledge to be the "end all" of what there is to learn.

You couldn't be more wrong.

The entire basis of all science is that nothing can ever truely be provable. Simply because almost every previous scientific idea has been disproved or modified with future endeavors.

That is why in the school of science, things are never EVER to be considered "facts". The furthest you get from a hypothesis whose evidence has been time-tested is a "theory".

There's a reason why they use such precautious wording. Maybe you should try to look into the subject before assuming you know everything about it.


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"Shmokin' weed, Shmokin' wizz, doin' coke, drinkin' beers.  Drinkin' beers beers beers, rollin' fatties, smokin' blunts.  Who smokes tha blunts?  We smoke the blunts" - Jay and Silent Bob strike Back

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OfflineSycronica
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: 001]
    #4642509 - 09/10/05 02:40 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

How many years did it take for scientists to realize that the earth wasn't flat, and that the sun didn't orbit around the earth?




I don't think anyone thinks of those folks as "scientists". Since, there was no science back then, only religion. People like newton and galleo(sp?) and prolly a handful more are the only ones we know of that could even come close to being called a scientist. Those few who did resemble something close to scientists were the extreem minority, and mostly laughed at or locked up by the masses.

People believing the world is flat is not proof that science can be wrong, it's proof that you can make up any story you like and get people to believe it. Science on the other hand requires tests to prove it's theories, where religion requires blind obedience and all tests and expirments are thrown out the window, along with any shred of real proof.


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Think for yourself. Question authority.

Forgiveness is the ultimate sacrifice.

You can fool some people sometimes, but you can't fool all the people all the time.

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OfflinePuppet1
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: Sycronica]
    #4642827 - 09/10/05 04:11 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

a question on this subject since you guys seem to be at a disagreement:

what is someone thinks up an absolutely abstract concept, one that might be provable in the distant future if ever, but most certainly cannot be proven or disproven today. Then what if in the distant future scientists prove that such an concept actually exists, does the philospoher/theorist get credit for it even though he had no idea how to prove it, but understood how it can exist?

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OfflineCatalysis
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Re: A Team of Astrophysicists Claims to Have Identified Evidence that Space is Six-Dimensional [Re: ivi]
    #4643175 - 09/10/05 06:40 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

The problem I have with these conclusions is that, as Steven Hawking said, it is all physics based on "positivist philosophy".

We don't even fully understand gravity. The graviton has never been isolated or directly observed and yet it is postulated only because quantum physics has a good track record.

Now we have dark matter which is only identified by gravitational anomalies. Furthermore, now we apparently have scientists trying to model space based off of the poorly understood dark matter. If only one part of this chain of assumptions is incorrect, it invalidates everything.

Its like when Einstein came out with relativity theory and scientists began calculating that if you spin around 3 times while whistling dixie, you can teleport to some alternate reality. Just because it can be mathematically derived from a positivist theory does not make it true, but it may make it worth investigating.

There are actually MANY more assumptions that go into this conclusion. Take a look at "Randall-Sundrum" models or brane cosmology. Although I am not a quantum physicist, its my opinion that a lot of this stuff is entirely speculative. However, these postulates are useful exercises in the exploration of cutting-edge physics.

Edited by Catalysis (09/10/05 06:52 PM)

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