What if the Fifth Dimension Turns Out to Be Real?

Photo by Linea Høiby on Unsplash Physicists are turning to an extra dimension beyond our four dimensions of spacetime as a way of explaining some of the deepest mysteries of the universe. What if they are right? What might this mean for the closed door distinction we currently make between the physical and spiritual. Here is a highly speculative quest.

As part of the Theology of Nearly Everything (TONE) I am attempting, I will propose the fifth dimension as a way of exploring a physical/spiritual dimension. To do that, we’ll begin with a very brief summary of how the fifth dimension is used by some scientists and thinkers to explain some of the greatest and most enduring mysteries in science. Then, with this as a foundation, we will venture into the very uncertain space of theological spiritual speculation. It will be exactly the kind of speculation that drives some scientists crazy.

Brief history of a wild idea

Scientists are becoming more serious about the possibility of a fifth dimension. German physicist Theodor Kaluza first suggested the idea in 1919 based on Einstein’s General Relativity. In1926 Oskar Klein gave the idea a quantum interpretation. The idea was revived by Lisa Randall and Raman Sundrum in 1999 and since then has been studied by a number of scientists looking at various aspects of current physics.

The idea of extra dimensions gained some favor with string theory that initially proposed some twenty extra dimensions and now, with M Theory, seems settled on 10. The six beyond space and time are rolled up like miniscule straws smaller than an atom so we don’t see them. Randall and Sundrum developed a “brane” model with a…