- Researchers trying to solve the problem of dark matter have proposed a particle that can travel to an invisible fifth dimension.
- The work is completely hypothetical in that it tries to explain some kind of matter that no one has ever seen using a particle that has never been identified.
- Proving or disproving the theory likely requires new technologies that have yet to be invented.
If you’re a science buff, you’ve probably heard a lot about dark matter over the years. Dark matter theory is based on the fact that calculations of the motions of galaxies and other features that we can see in space do not agree with what we think we know about the laws of the physical world. So to better explain why the universe has played out the way it has played since the Big Bang, there must be a whole lot of matter that we can’t see or simply haven’t identified yet.
But while the idea of dark matter may answer some questions, it also poses other problems. When there is so much dark matter in the universe, we should at least be able to see it, but we can’t. In seeking an explanation, researchers have begun to form truly incredible theories, including the possibility that a fifth dimension exists, and that our inability to deal with that dimension is the reason we haven’t seen dark matter yet. Now a team of scientists has published a paper suggesting the existence of a particle that could serve as a gateway to that invisible dimension.
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Unfortunately, the newspaper has resulted in some pretty wild headlines on the Internet. Some outlets have gone so far as to suggest that scientists actually “found” a gateway to the fifth dimension when in reality nothing could be further from the truth. However, the work itself is still extremely interesting.
In the newspaper, which was published in The European Physical Journal Cthe researchers wanted to solve some problems related to the abundance of dark matter and particles known as fermions. Fermions are very small – smaller than an atom – and protons and electrons are part of this group. In an effort to answer the questions they studied, the scientists came up with a new physics theory that contains not only the four dimensions we know (three dimensions of space and one dimension of time), but a fifth dimension that contains a certain type of particle could pass through it.
“If this heavy particle exists, it would necessarily link the visible matter we know and have studied in detail to the constituents of dark matter, assuming dark matter is composed of fundamental fermions that live in the extra dimension, Said the scientists Vice“This is not a far-fetched idea, as we know that ordinary matter is made of fermions and that if this extra dimension exists, they are likely to reproduce in it.”
While it may not be “far-fetched” for scientists, they also make some assumptions here, such as the existence of the fifth dimension itself. They also rely on the existing theory of dark matter – that it makes up 85% of our universe and exerts a force on objects in our dimension, but we just can’t see it – and the existence of this new theoretical particle that, again no one has ever seen it.
Simply put, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered before we can even begin to determine the existence of a fifth dimension, and if one of those theoretical building blocks isn’t real, the whole building will collapse. Again, the work is interesting, but no, we have not found a fifth dimension and no, there is no ‘portal’ to it that we actually know.
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Mike Wehner has spent the last decade reporting on technology and video games, covering the latest news and trends in VR, wearables, smartphones and future technology. Most recently, Mike worked as a Tech Editor at The Daily Dot and has appeared on USA Today, Time.com, and numerous other web and print stores. His love of reporting comes second to his gaming addiction.