The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [75]
“That’s about what I expected,” Silver said with a smile. “Paul was working in advanced particle physics, the cutting edge of physics today, and he was trying to postulate the unified field theory that Einstein failed to formulate at the end of his career.”
“I’m not sure I know what that means,” Castle said.
“I’m not surprised,” Silver replied as he clicked his mouse, preparing to type in a short answer to an email. “I will try to keep this simple so you both get the basic idea.”
Castle and Anne agreed that made sense.
“In the last century, quantum mechanics challenged our fundamental understanding of time and space, just as did Einstein with relativity theory. In other words, physicists like your brother came to understand we do not live in a world defined by the four dimensions of length, width, height, and time. We frequently use the example of a famous novel Edwin Abbott published in 1884, called Flatland. In Abbott’s flatland, the characters in the novel lived in a two-dimensional world in which there was only length and width. The world was flat in that no object had any height. This opened up an interesting possibility. Creatures like us who live in the added dimension of height take on magical properties in flatland. If you hover above flatland, you can enter the two-dimensional world as if you appear from nowhere. Then, if you leap out of flatland, it looks like you have disappeared. Appearing here and then there gives the impression you have walked through walls in flatland, when all you have really done is to hover above it in the dimension of height, waiting to choose when you want to enter the next room. Vanishing from the world of flatland and rematerializing suddenly out of nowhere is incomprehensible to flatlanders, who have no concept of height, but is no problem whatsoever to you, provided you live in three dimensions. Do you follow me?”
“Yes, I think so,” Castle said for himself and Anne.
“You’ve got to read the books written by Michio Kaku,” Silver said. “He’s a theoretical physicist at the City University of New York. He’s written several books explaining advanced physics to laymen and he’s brilliant at it. Kaku uses another example. When H. G. Wells wrote his novel The Invisible Man in 1897, he showed the limitations of our four dimensions. There is this stranger who is completely covered with white bandages around his face, a hat that covers his head, and dark glasses. The invisible man turns out to be a Mr. Griffen of University College, who has discovered a way to make himself disappear by changing the refractive and reflective properties of human skin. Instead of using his discovery to better the human condition, Griffen uses his ability to disappear to commit a score of petty crimes. The point is that by learning to tap into invisibility as a fifth spatial dimension beyond length, width, and height, the invisible man is able to manifest the type of powers we typically attribute to ghosts or phantoms.”
“So, what is the point?” Castle asked bluntly. “I’m sure I would benefit from taking one of your graduate courses, but I’m afraid I would turn out to be a disappointing candidate for a physics Ph.D.”
Silver got the message. “My point is that physicists like your brother and me have come to believe that we may live in a universe that has as many as ten dimensions, not just four.”
“What are the other six?” Anne asked. “Is this what my brother was searching for?”
“Yes,” Silver acknowledged. “It is. Specifically, your brother was working with complex equations that explain observations particle physicists make when observing subatomic particles in complex and ridiculously expensive machines like the Large Hadron Collider at CERN on the French-Swiss border near Geneva. Physicists like Paul Bartholomew were investigating what we call ‘M-Theory,’ sometimes called ‘the Theory of Everything,’ an advanced version of what we physicists call ‘string theory.’ We can postulate that instead of a four-dimensional world, maybe we live in ten-dimensional space. A bumblebee