High energy collisions by the nearly-completed Large Hadron Collider (LHC) may be able to generate particles that are sensitive to dimensions beyond our four dimensional space-time. These exotic particles, called Kaluza-Klein gravitons, would be highly sensitive to the geometry of extra-dimensions, giving scientists an idea about what lies beyond our universe. If these particles are detected, and if their characteristics can be measured, then perhaps the extra dimensions predicted by string theory may be proven to exist…
How can you measure the size of a room without actually measuring it? Forget measuring the room, you can’t even see it! The room is invisible; it is outside your observational ability. But what if you could bounce sound off the walls? Even better, what if the walls of the invisible room were made up of resonant particles, producing their own sound? If the sound from these resonant particles could then be analyzed, the shape of the invisible room would be known.
According to string theory, there are many “invisible rooms” that we, as observers, cannot experience. We are confined to our three dimensions of space and one dimension of time (although this may not always be the case), otherwise known as four dimensional space-time. Elemental vibrating strings thread through our universe and predict that there may be six or seven extra dimensions coexisting. Although we cannot directly experience the dimensions beyond the normal four, can we measure the characteristics of string vibrations travelling from these extra dimensions into our observable universe?
In new research published by Gary Shiu, Bret Underwood, Kathryn Zurek at UW-Madison and Devin Walker at UC-Berkeley, quantum particles have been theorized to have the ability to resonate with dimensions beyond our universe; beyond the 4th dimension, considered to be time. From this resonance, signatures from extra-dimensions could pass through our four dimensional space-time to be measured. From this analysis, the “shape” of the extra dimensions may then be understood. This is not purely out of curiosity, according to string theory the shape of extra dimensions influences everything in our universe:
“The shape of the dimensions is crucial because, in string theory, the way the string vibrates determines the pattern of particle masses and the forces that we feel.” – UW-Madison physics professor, Gary Shiu.
The team predict particles carrying extra-dimensional signatures could be generated by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (nr. Geneva, Switzerland). At very high energies, Kaluza-Klein (KK) gravitons may be created for a brief moment, carrying the signatures with them. Unfortunately KK gravitons will decay very quickly, but from this decay a shower of lower energy, detectable particles will be created. By analyzing the resulting shower, a fingerprint of the KK particle’s signature may be constructed. Any slight changes in the geometry of the detected particles may indicate a particular dimension, and many signatures may be mixed, so complex computer simulations are required to understand the results coming from the LHC.
Source: Science Daily
While these discoveries are fascinating, it is bittersweet for me, a Texan, to know that many of these discoveries that will be made at the LHC could have been made a decade ago at the superconducting supercollider that was halfway constructed in Texas. The legislature decided that it was too expensive, and ordered it dismantled. The ironic thing is that it cost as much to dismantle it as it would have cost to finish it.
The history of the aborted Texas superconducting collider is tragic — and infuriating. Why are so many legislators so bleeping penny-wise and pound-foolish? To get votes, they do things that end up squandering the taxpayers’ money for stupid things that impoverish their districts culturally, scientifically, and otherwise. We really need more scientists to go into politics so that they can fight for scientific projects and prevent fiascos like this!
“Kaluza-Klein gravitons”
… heh heh heh…
If video games have taught me anything, the LHC will open up a portal to an evil dimension allowing hordes of demons to infest the earth and it’ll be up to me to stop them! For the sake of humanity they had better not fire this thing up!
It’d be nice to investigate things that are actually real, don’t U think?
What? They built an Oscillation Overthruster? Quick! Alert The Blue Blaze Irregulars and be on the lookout for Red Lectroids!
When you here sound from walls you can not see, you know you have planes of surface to map…what do we know about the internal workings of other dimensions such that we can make any sense of minute differences in sub atomic particle splatters?
Some people are SO far beyond me!
These guys talk like “extra dimensions” are a given! So, let’s seee, they “string” together a bunch of whacko mathematics, con people into spending billions of dollars/euros, and award themselves a Noble Prize if they discover anything or, if they don’t, they justify and spend billions again to build the next thing that surely will prove the new and improved “XXXXXX” theory that fixes the problems of the last (discredited) great breakthough. And we thought perpetual motion was impossible! These guys ought to go back to UFO research. Anybody found a gravitron, much less a “Kaluza-Klein” gravitron?
Ya gotta look. The negative results set limits to what can be.
Personal prediction: they will find no evidence of addtional dimensions.
Spacetime is not structural quality of the gravitational field like Einstein stated. Exactly spacetime is structural quality of the matter and field. This is spacetime is not continent but content. The particle-wave, of matter and field, has three special dimensions and one temporal dimension. Thus, spacetime is structural quality of particle-wave. Universe exists inside of the field back created in the Big Bang. Now only Quantum Gravity is possible but it will must remove it of General Relativity .
somebody watch Cube 2 …
Let’s say they find Higgs or KK gravitrons or 22 more dimensions. The next step will be to try to influence the strings to create…?
I thought the belief now is that 11 dimensions exist (theory). No matter…such exciting times we live in!
I think most people overestimate the power of LHC (around 14 TeV). If the SSC were buit, its power’d be at least double of that amount (~40 TeV?). If we want to find some exotic particles, then we need to build a 1 PeV linear muon collider. That is truly doing science research!!!
String theory, is our current best attempt to reconcile Einstein’s theory of relativity with quantum mechanics – as combining them directly leads to absurd results.
The fact that the String theories are so hard to understand and to experimentally verify does not make them wrong.
There is no rule that tne universe should be able to be understood by theories that only require equations that can be successfully taught to the average 16 year old.
It is possible that ‘reality as we perceive it’, may be only one of many possibilities. So the ‘failure’ of string theory to accurately predict ;our type of universe;, may well be telling us something we don’t like, and yet be correct!
-Nivag
“Dwight Says:
February 5th, 2008 at 8:29 am
These guys talk like “extra dimensions” are a given! So, let’s seee, they “string” together a bunch of whacko mathematics, con people into blah blah blah blah”
> Give up Dwight – you’re way out of your league, sunshine.
I almost can’t wait until the results start appearing in the literature for the LHC. One thing is for damn sure – whatever we find, it’s going to be unexpected. Yieew!
Hey ‘AstroFiend’, before the Cleons get you, let’s see one of you brainiacs provide some type of testable proof of even one extra dimension. Let’s get physics off the blackboards and back into testable, v erifiable experimental results. How sad it is when we have to spend billions of dollars on toys to grow our knowledge of the universe. Of course then there’s the your own guy who says the LHC will only show the Higgs Boson and nothing else — no dark matter, no dark energy, no extra-dimesnsions, no gravity waves, no gravitrons, no repulsive ‘gravity,’ no mini-BigBangs, ect, et. al. And, oh yeah, good luck with all those ‘exotic particles’ you’re going to find. Time to beam you guys back up to the mother ship!
Yes that makes sense… prove what you are saying without experimentation? What do you think the LHC is for, a slot-car racetrack for adults? It’s to prove or disprove these theories! So please those of you who want to rant and rave, go prove dark matter doesn’t exist without looking for it, go prove extra dimensions don’t exist without looking for them, prove gravitons don’t exist without looking for them, and stick your head in the sand while you’re at it. If you can do any of these I’ll give you a cookie!
I think we should all just take the bible’s word for it. Why use our brains to explore, discover, test and prove anything when the bible told us how our good god (dog spelt backwards..hmm?) built everything for us while he was bored one week. I think all the credit should go to some mexican named jesus (my gardner might be available, he has some carpenter skill’s..he’s pretty good with furniture) he’s lost his touch with the water into wine thing but he’s real good at turing beer into piss (or streams of gold as it’s reffered to in the latest edition). And instead of spending all our resources on bettering humanity through truth, knowledge, science, education and development of new technologies we should just serve god and feel bad all the time about signs or sin’s or somthing like that. A sin is kindda like a foul in a basketball game except instead of a referee god writes you up and then keeps track of your score. That’s why it’s so important to have churches so they can tell us what sins to avoid. The people with the least fouls are punished by being sent to some place called heaven which is full of virgins according to some people, personally i prefer the other place – the experience on those girls is a definite plus. See, everything we know and feel about ourselves is wrong that’s why we have chruches and mosques to tell us what to do what not to do, what’s bad or good and who to vote for. Instead of spending more money on things like the LHC I think god would’ve been happier if we built more curches, he might have even forgave those poor child molesting priests who were only following tradition. Long live religion, iggnorance and human exploitation!!!
Is this where the U.F.O.’s come from?
I’m Not a physics student but i find it interesting …1 question though what happens when they smash the smallest things on earth? wont it create lika void where the particles or whatever shoulda been?
Typical Village Idiot…
You know not what you are saying against a God who loves you so very much, and would let his own Son die so you could be forgiven of those sins of which you speak. I find it fascinating that the Bible has shown several times in the history of the world where man has become so full of himself and thought he could recreate what only God himself can create. This LHC is part of the overall plan that Satan has to convince the whole world that there is no God and that he can create any miracle, even the miracle of creation. God will show himself to be real, and every knee will bow and confess Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the Lord and Savior, and the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. The bible tells us that Satan will attemp to counterfeit the miracles of God, and many will believe the deception. This LHC machine will create more misery in the world than anything good, because it is an attempt to explain what only God knows, and it is attempting to make humans like God. God already told us this time would come. Christians, hold on to your faith and your Lord Jesus Christ, and the holy inspired Word of God, because it is going to be a wild ride for the rest of humanity.
For some, its proof of ignorance to poke fun at things one is unwilling or incapable of understanding. Comfort is the enemy of progress and learning. However, to present theories as fact, and add more theories to support those initial theories is counterproductive to truth. Time is a deception that seems to be necessary for man until he becomes less arrogant and even less destructive. Therefore parallel or other dimensions must remain unreachable until man evolves into a higher being worthy of such knowledge, lest he find ways to destroy or exploit them, maybe even unknowingly. I think man convinces himself he is the highest form of intelligence while ignoring the facts of history that continue to prove he is unworthy of trust.
And the discussion is lowered to this: Weird cryptic warnings form the Christ camp. Dear people, science describes. That’s it. You shouldn’t feel so threatened by it. Science doesn’t assert blindly, that’s the province of blind faith.
Instead of using small particles to smash each other with within the LHC I propose we use Sarah and her fellow members of her cult religion. It should give a much more interesting result!
Hey Sarah did you even know your “bible” was written hundreds of years after the supposed death of christ…a book written a 100 years after a great event…think it might of changed a little? OR A LOT! Science is fact, religion is fiction.
I see things 2 and 3 different ways, only at 10 second intervals and in different demetions. This all started when I fell down some stairs and hit my head when I was 3 yrs old, ever since I have had this sensitive ability. I know where things belong in rooms and spaces. I also feel good and bad energies. The demention I’m in is diffrent than every one elses.
Are the fruits of the big bang, dimensions, by accident? Or, by design? If random, then what are the odds of their duplication in a lab? But, if by design, for purpose, then that’s a different story. I believe creation mirrors design, that is,we see God by what he created. Therefore, “dimensional duplicates” could never come about in a lab.
I just happened on this web site and have no clue as to what I just said. Absolute meaningless yak. The kinda of stuff that sells modern science, you know, like global warming.
My apologies, for not giving the appropriate respect to the world of fables, excuse me science. Why spend so much on the large hardon collider? The best way to duplicate the big bang is simple and cheap. Get a large person to put away a large portion of high fiber beans within the confines of a laboratory. Then with the proper instrumentation you can not only measure one big bang, but many.
someone please explain to me what kind of technology can possibly emerge from this????
lmao at KP
I happened upon the LHC and then of course this website in reading and researching in trying to quench my hunger for knowledge and couldn’t help but leave a comment, since everyone else did…
I am an engineer at the largest nuclear power station in the United States, so I have a very analytical outlook at life. I think this is a major milestone in our history, not because we are going to find 7 other dimensions of which we have no real explanation for, or we are going to unravel the time space mystery, but because we tried. As mankind has progressed through history we have continued to try to increase our knowledge making leaps and to get there we need to of course try and this is the next big leap. Every theory needs to be tested and this is actually testing multiple theories and looking deeper than we ever have, as a result of our normal evolution. If we came up with the idea and an implementaion strategy and then did nothing we would fail to better ourselves and to evolve further. Even if we find nothing at all and smash some atoms, we had to try.
For those who live under the preassumtion that God is almighty and this is a creation of Satan, remember that if it is then it was predetermined and your rantings will not change a thing and that your comments about the devils work is being done are unwelcomed to those of us who are trying to better ourselves and increase our understanding rather than live behind the shadow of religon. For us who are not on your playing field, your comments are not going to change our minds or stop CERN from lighting the LHC up for a bit of a spin, so please stay in your group and complain about the world until your hearts content and please don’t come out until your ready to make a sensible contribution to mankind.
I for one am terribly excited and would love to be there for the first run, or even to just look at the LHC.
I am listening to faith and fact or should i said to fundamuntalist and science it like the oldest game of the heart or maybe who should we call imperialist , what ever somethink i know is good and bad what ever side you take they all need each other
If you can not experience the dimension beyond the normal four you should stop for a while and use faith to understand why. They are few think in the universe that can not be measure like a fifth dimension or somethink called love. Love is proven to be a creative force in the universe.
Very interesting – I’ve had several discussions with friends regarding other dimensions and the potential fallacy in viewing our human concepts of time and space as being the end all and be all of the universe – unfortunately i am usually met with sarcasm and jokes – as far as the religious talk goes, i’m sure people said “Satan did it” before every major discovery in modern history: aviation, space travel, the internet – I’m not saying I don’t believe in a higher power because I do, but humans are continuing to learn and that is not dangerous