PARALLEL UNIVERSES 233
Hollywood movies and science fiction novels, our universe somehow
collides with a parallel universe. A poor angel from the other universe
falls into our universe after being accidentally shot by a hunter. Horrified by all the greed, pettiness, and selfishness of our universe, the angel eventually commits suicide.)
The idea of parallel universes was also explored, tongue-in-cheek,
by Robert Heinlein in The Number of the Beast. Heinlein imagines a
group of four brave individuals who romp across parallel universes in
a mad professor's interdimensional sports car.
In the TV series Sliders, a young boy reads a book and gets the inspiration to build a machine that would allow him to "slide" between
parallel universes. (The book that the young boy was reading was actually my book, Hyperspace.)
But historically the fourth dimension has been considered a mere
curiosity by physicists. No evidence has ever been found for higher dimensions. This began to change in 1919 when physicist Theodor
Raluza wrote a highly controversial paper that hinted at the presence
of higher dimensions. He started with Einstein's theory of general relativity, but placed it in five dimensions (one dimension of time and
four dimensions of space; since time is the fourth space-time dimension, physicists now refer to the fourth spatial dimension as the fifth dimension). If the fifth dimension were made smaller and smaller, the
equations magically split into two pieces. One piece describes Einstein's standard theory of relativity, but the other piece becomes
Maxwell's theory of light!
This was a stunning revelation. Perhaps the secret of light lies in
the fifth dimension! Einstein himself was shocked by this solution,
which seemed to provide an elegant unification of light and gravity.
(Einstein was so shaken by Raluza's proposal that he mulled it over for
two years before finally agreeing to have this paper published.) Einstein wrote to Raluza, "The idea of achieving [a unified theory] by
means of a five-dimensional cylinder world never dawned on me ... At
first glance, I like your idea enormously ... The formal unity of your
theory is startling."
For years physicists had asked the question: if light is a wave, then
Hollywood movies and science fiction novels, our universe somehow
collides with a parallel universe. A poor angel from the other universe
falls into our universe after being accidentally shot by a hunter. Horrified by all the greed, pettiness, and selfishness of our universe, the angel eventually commits suicide.)
The idea of parallel universes was also explored, tongue-in-cheek,
by Robert Heinlein in The Number of the Beast. Heinlein imagines a
group of four brave individuals who romp across parallel universes in
a mad professor's interdimensional sports car.
In the TV series Sliders, a young boy reads a book and gets the inspiration to build a machine that would allow him to "slide" between
parallel universes. (The book that the young boy was reading was actually my book, Hyperspace.)
But historically the fourth dimension has been considered a mere
curiosity by physicists. No evidence has ever been found for higher dimensions. This began to change in 1919 when physicist Theodor
Raluza wrote a highly controversial paper that hinted at the presence
of higher dimensions. He started with Einstein's theory of general relativity, but placed it in five dimensions (one dimension of time and
four dimensions of space; since time is the fourth space-time dimension, physicists now refer to the fourth spatial dimension as the fifth dimension). If the fifth dimension were made smaller and smaller, the
equations magically split into two pieces. One piece describes Einstein's standard theory of relativity, but the other piece becomes
Maxwell's theory of light!
This was a stunning revelation. Perhaps the secret of light lies in
the fifth dimension! Einstein himself was shocked by this solution,
which seemed to provide an elegant unification of light and gravity.
(Einstein was so shaken by Raluza's proposal that he mulled it over for
two years before finally agreeing to have this paper published.) Einstein wrote to Raluza, "The idea of achieving [a unified theory] by
means of a five-dimensional cylinder world never dawned on me ... At
first glance, I like your idea enormously ... The formal unity of your
theory is startling."
For years physicists had asked the question: if light is a wave, then