The Theory of Everything.
Justifiably or not mainstream science is sometimes accused of being restrictive, myopic and highly unimaginative. Accusations which all give way when we consider the mind blowing implications behind one of sciences most sensational ideas - The String Theory.
Theory of Everything.
The String Theory - an astonishing work of scientific deduction, heralded as The Theory of Everything, claims that aside from the three dimensions we know and take for granted lie countless others that may exist remarkably close to us yet remain totally invisible.
These extra dimensions might well represent other and profoundly different forms of life where our own laws of physics are replaced by others that are so much stranger. Under this theory it is even possible there may be other dimensions like our own - a mirror image of this Universe we know and take for granted. But is the String Theory scientifically viable or is it merely a case of Fantasy Mathematics. To answer this lets take a closer look at what the String Theory really says.
Confined Universe.
Not too long ago the intellectual concept of the Universe was much more confined with equally confined ideas to explain it. Under this notion the smallest parts of atoms were point particles outside of which
were Electrons over an interior composed of Protons and Neutrons. These were thought to be indivisible but String Theory says otherwise. It claims that at the heart of matter lie tiny corks made up of vibrating strings that are either open ended or closed in loops.
These strings are thought to be highly versatile, vibrating in limitless patterns to create all the fundamental particles of nature. It is thought that by understanding the rhythm of strings it is theoretically possible to understand all the forces of nature and has the unique potential to be known as “A unified theory of everything.”
Inter dimensional travel.
The most exciting assertion of all is that these string loops are said to be capable of travelling between dimensions, creating a crack in time. In effect a worm hole between two or more separate dimensions.
Five Separate Theories and The M theory Union.
Although String Theory has become vastly popular the pioneering mathematicians who first thought of it laboured for years in strict isolation. One of the most baffling enigmas was the early realisation that there seemed to be at least five separate String Theories. This difficulty persisted until the brilliant physicist Edward Witten showed this to be merely five separate ways of looking at the same problem. It was at this point that the String Theory really gained widespread renown and respectability, and became renamed by Witten as the M theory which he cryptically explained as being M for Magic, Mystery and Matrix.
M Theory and the extra dimensions.
From this point onwards the M Theory as it was now known became so much more exciting. Until then String Theory allowed for ten separate
dimensions but the M Theory added one more to the equation.
This was important because this extra dimension allowed for strings to stretch. These Branes, as they were now called could grow and stretch to enormous sizes - probably even as great as the Universe itself. Even more bewildering was the discovery that while these Branes could be so unbelievably long they were in reality very thin indeed - probably no more than a millimeter or two in width.
Trapped within a dimension.
The existence of an extra dimension led to the exciting conclusion that other dimensions could be as close to us as our own skin and we would be totally unaware of their existence. This is because we are essentially trapped within our own dimension so that particles are unable to interact with any of the other dimensions even though they might lie within very close proximity. Theorists have explained this lack of inter dimensional passage in terms of the physical nature of the strings which in most cases is an open ended loop that binds matter to our dimension rather like glue binds to the surface that it bonds with.
The Mystery of Gravity.
So is it entirely impossible for inter dimensional activity to take place? For some time it seemed that it was, but then the answer appeared to come through one of the most mystifying forces of nature - gravity! Gravity has always baffled scientists and astronomers because although it binds the courses of the stars and the planets it is essentially a very weak force. Yet it seemed to the String Theorists that here was an answer for this weakness because gravitons with their closed loops were not tied down and appeared exactly the sort of force that could quite literally seep away into another dimension.
Fermilab Experiments.
The next course of enquiry seemed im
mediately apparent - to capture the exact moment at which gravitons escape our dimension. This is where Fermilab The National Accelerator Laboratory in The United States began to take an interest.
If particles could be smashed into one another fast enough it seemed feasible that eventually a record of the missing gravitons could be captured at the instant they drifted into this other dimension
Until now this has not proved possible but within the not too distant future an even faster accelerator The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cerne in Switzerland will come into commission.
In 2007 this will inaugurate a brand new atom smashing machine that will be so much more powerful, a particle accelerator “which will probe deeper into matter than ever before.”
String Theory and The Big Bang.
The whole concept of the String Theory has led to a wholesale reappraisal of another great theory - the Big Bang. For many years this was taken as a definitive view of how the Universe came into being. However the String Theory has always had its objectors and even our own feature on the subject reveals the glaring shortcomings this idea imposes.
Proponents of the String theory however believe that the Big Bang was not the “one time only” event that was previously supposed.
In fact to them the Big Bang may have been just one of hundreds, possibly thousands of similar events.
They speculate that the Big Bang was surely not the beginning of all matter but simply the creation of this Universe at the moment when two separate dimensions collided with one another. A process which may have happened countless thousands of times.
There are even those who believe that an entire Universe may be created and brought into being in the context of a laboratory setting. Others (see heading below) respond by arguing that the dangers of such research are far too considerable for us to undertake research into areas we barely understand.
Far reaching implications.
If indeed it is possible for a whole Universe to be created by particle collision then it raises far reaching implications for our entire view of the meaning of life and our place in the grand order of the Cosmos. Previously held beliefs will be challenged as never before and it seems that here we enter into the realms of a mystery not limited by imagination but one that extends in limitless directions to possibly millions of separate universes consisting of a myriad of branes held together inside a far greater dimensional space.
Ancient connection.
There is some evidence that ancient societies may have understood the concept of inter dimensional travel far better than we do today. Many of the great ancient sites were set in harmony to each other, along shared lines of Earth energy known as Ley Lines.
It is possible that some property associated with this power and the way it was channelled enabled passage or contact with other dimensions. We have seen that gravity possesses many strange qualities and perhaps one function of ancient structures like standing stones and circles, possibly even the pyramids, was to harness these properties to facilitate communication or travel with other dimensions.
Fantasy mathematics?
In conclusion we should sound a cautionary note. The fact is that although String Theory is mathematically sound and proves that other dimensions could exist it is not the same as actually knowing they exist for certain. This is after all a theory, and many brilliant theories have later shown themselves to be completely wrong. Where the String Theory differs is that the mathematical perfection it entails is of the sort that is rarely found wanting in future discoveries. In essence the evidence points to an opening door of the sort that could massively transform everything we know and take for granted about the world and the Universe around us.