Scientist claims the universe has SEVEN dimensions

It might sound like something from The Matrix, but scientists now say that our universe has seven dimensions.

In addition to the four dimensions we normally experience – height, length, depth, and time – physicists argue that there are three extra ‘folded’ layers of reality.

Far from being science fiction, researchers believe it could solve one of the most stubborn problems in the history of physics.

According to the researchers, this wild theory finally explains what happens to black holes when they die.

Scientists used to think that black holes were cosmic voids from which nothing could ever escape.

But in the 1970s, Stephen Hawking realised that black holes emit radiation, slowly evaporating away as time goes by. 

The problem is that this appears to violate one of quantum physics’ most important rules, creating something called the information paradox.

A group of researchers now say they have found a solution to this 50–year–old conundrum – but it only works if the universe really has seven dimensions.

The information paradox stems from a rule in quantum physics which states that information cannot be destroyed.

Co–author Richard Pinčák, a senior researcher at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, told the Daily Mail: ‘Imagine you throw a book into a fire.

‘The book is destroyed, but in principle you could reconstruct every word from the smoke, ash, and heat — the information is scrambled, not lost.’

However, according to Hawking, black holes should eventually evaporate away into nothingness, taking all the information they once contained with them.

This appears to be a fundamental clash between the ‘classical’ laws of physics ruling big objects like black holes, and the quantum laws that govern things on the smallest scales.

Dr Pinčák’s unique solution to this paradox stems from a novel way of understanding the structure of spacetime itself.

According to Einstein’s theories, spacetime is like a four–dimensional sheet that can twist, bend, and stretch in the presence of strong gravitational fields.

But according to some modern theories, spacetime actually has seven dimensions, including three that we can’t normally see.

‘We experience three dimensions of space and one of time – four dimensions in total,’ says Dr Pinčák.

‘Our model proposes that the universe actually has seven dimensions: the four we know, plus three tiny extra dimensions curled up so tightly that we cannot directly perceive them.’

This means that spacetime can not only fold, but twist – creating a new physical effect known as torsion.

It turns out that this so–called ‘torsion field’ is key to understanding what happens to black holes when they appear to vanish.

According to the researchers’ theory, as a black hole evaporates away to the smallest scales possible, its seven dimensions essentially tangle into a knot.

When this knot becomes small enough, the folding of these hidden dimensions creates an outward force that prevents the black hole from collapsing entirely.

This leaves behind an astonishingly tiny remnant, some 10 billion times smaller than an electron.

However, this twisted knot of hidden dimensions still holds onto all the information that fell into the black hole like a tiny permanent memorial.

This means that the information is never lost because the black hole never really vanishes, resolving the apparent problem of the information paradox.

The exciting part of this theory is that it might also help solve a few of physics’ thorniest issues.

The researchers say the three hidden dimensions and the torsion field is enough to produce the pattern of interactions behind the Higgs mechanism, otherwise known as the ‘God particle’, which gives other particles mass.

The researchers suggest that these black hole remnants could even make up dark matter, the invisible substance that makes up 27 per cent of the universe’s mass.

If they are right, scientists should be able to detect particles with extra dimensions known as ‘Kaluza–Klein particles’.

However, these are about 14 orders of magnitude heavier than the most massive known elementary particle and seven orders of magnitude beyond the reach of the Large Hadron Collider.

Researchers may be able to find traces of these seven–dimensional structures in the Cosmic Microwave Radiation left over from the Big Bang or in ancient ripples in spacetime called primordial gravitational waves.

Yet the technology required for these experiments still remains far off, leaving this solution to the mystery of black holes as just another tantalising possibility.