Historical research guide · 1064 · 2003
Cosmology and the Door to Other Dimensions and Universes
Robert M. L. Baker, Jr. · Paul Murad
In one minute
Robert Baker and Paul Murad open with a challenge to habit: do not let conventional wisdom decide in advance which routes off this planet are worth thinking about. What follows is a cosmological conjecture. They propose that the dimensions which define spatial and temporal space are not a fixed set of four but a continuum of many dimensions and universes — an infinite number of them. Time, on their account, is not merely relative; it is the discriminator, the thing that tells one universe from another, and it may mark where one series of dimensional sets begins and another closes. Those sets could be parallel universes, layered ones, or sequences of realities. If that is the shape of things, then spatial dimensions, and gravity itself, could act as a portal between them. The two authors put forward two qualitative experiments to address the conjecture, and conclude that gravity and high-frequency gravitational waves are where the key would be found.
Connection
Chapter 4 treats the metric as something you might engineer rather than only observe, and this paper is an early, explicit attempt to name a door — extra dimensions reached through gravity — and then to ask what instrument would open it. Chapter 13 keeps it where it belongs on the honest ledger: a conjecture, stated as a conjecture by its authors, with two named experiments attached to it.
From the source
The opening move is methodological, and it is the reason the paper exists: one should not limit our space travel options to approaches dictated by the conventional wisdom.Abstract, first sentence
The central proposal is that the dimensions which define spatial and temporal space are represented by a continuum of many dimensions and universes — an infinite number of them — rather than by the four we move in.Abstract, third sentence
Time is given a structural role rather than only a relative one. On this account time is the discriminator, or definer, of a continuum of universes, and may to some degree identify the start or the closure of a separate series of dimensional sets — sets that can be parallel or layered universes, or sequences of realities.Abstract, fourth sentence
The route between those realities is proposed to be geometric and gravitational: spatial dimensions, as well as gravity, may offer a portal to travel among the different sequences of realities.Abstract, fifth sentence
The conjecture is not left as words. The authors discuss two possible qualitative experiments to address it, which is what turns the proposal into something that could be argued about with an instrument rather than only with a preference.Abstract, sixth sentence
The conclusion names the instrument. Gravity, possibly because of its multi-dimensional nature, together with high-frequency gravitational waves, is held to hold the key for inter-dimensional or inter-universe space travel, and the paper proposes a framework for developing what the authors call a space-time-universe fabric that would offer such opportunities.Abstract, seventh and eighth sentences
The way in
https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2003-4882How to cite it
Robert M. L. Baker, Jr., Paul Murad (2003) Cosmology and the Door to Other Dimensions and Universes doi:10.2514/6.2003-4882