"Observing" other dimensions.

January 15, 2002 8:32 AM

"Observing" other dimensions. The existence of tiny black holes, produced by cosmic rays in the Earth's atmosphere, if confirmed by the Auger cosmic ray observatory, might provide evidence for other dimensions beyond Space and Time.
Amazing how theories considered untestable by experiment a few years ago are turning into "real" science.
posted by talos (11 comments total)

This is a relevant abstract from Phys. Rev. Letters.

Oh and by the way...proud to have posted this only once!
posted by talos at 8:44 AM on January 15, 2002

What's wrong with you? All critical news should be posted at least six times!

This is going to be REALLY interesting, when the results come out, no matter which way they go.
posted by dwivian at 9:13 AM on January 15, 2002

Clearly this is proof of the evils of eating meat/Steve Jobs' insanity/Unocal's involvment in suppressing Segway production/Enron's interest in the pretzel-industrial complex.
posted by coelecanth at 10:25 AM on January 15, 2002

Actually this is a very, very interesting story.
posted by coelecanth at 10:26 AM on January 15, 2002

It's not other dimensions "beyond Space and Time" though, it's just more dimensions of spacetime. People sometimes use "dimension" to mean "mysterious other universe", like the Purple Dimension, ruled by the dread Dormammu, but physicists don't use it that way. You can't be "in" a different dimension, but you can be at a different point along a different dimension.
posted by rodii at 11:08 AM on January 15, 2002

"Where are we going?"
"Planet 10!"
"When?"
"Real Soon!"
posted by MrBaliHai at 11:33 AM on January 15, 2002

That would be in Galaxy 666, no doubt.



[Hey, who's the Metafilistine behind the Gal666 blog?]
posted by rodii at 11:54 AM on January 15, 2002

hey cool! i was just reading this other thing in the economist about detecting other dimensions:

M-theory regards the 11th dimension as gravity's true habitat. The force spends most of its time there, and only rarely visits the dimensions of the branes. That is why it is so weak. But unlike the six curled-up dimensions of basic string theory, the 11th dimension of M-theory, although small, may not be undetectable. Some versions of the theory suggest it may intrude into 3D space over distances of a tenth of a millimetre or so. That is eminently measurable; it is just that no one has, until recently, bothered to try measuring the gravitational attraction between objects less than a tenth of a millimetre apart.

Eric Adelberger, at the University of Washington, in Seattle, is now doing so. M-theory predicts that the attraction may be stronger than expected, though Dr Adelberger has not yet found any discrepancy. It also predicts that it should be possible to make gravitons in particle accelerators, so the computer programs that analyse their results are being modified accordingly.
posted by kliuless at 12:12 PM on January 15, 2002

I remember reading something like that... to the effect that gravity is much weaker than magnetism because it dissipates into extra "micro-dimensions" where magnetic forces do not. I was looking for the source article in Scientific American, but it wasn't there.
posted by coelecanth at 12:29 PM on January 15, 2002

rodii: point taken. I meant perceived Space and Time.
posted by talos at 3:54 AM on January 16, 2002

[Hey, who's the Metafilistine behind the Gal666 blog?]

gamera's Profile
posted by y2karl at 4:15 AM on January 17, 2002