Scientists are sometimes asked if they do new experiments in the lab or just keep doing the same ones over and over again because the results are always the same. Most scientists do the first thing, but scientific growth also depends on doing the second thing and checking to see if what we think we know is still true in light of new information.
In new experiments, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) looked at the structure and properties of the material silicon, which has been studied a lot. The results showed where the “fifth force” might be found. A news release says that this could help us learn more about how nature works.
To put it simply, to understand the world, we only need three dimensions of space—north-south, east-west, and up-down—and one dimension of time—past-future.
Einstein’s theory of gravity, on the other hand, says that mass changes the size of space-time.
The BBC’s Science Focus says that in the 1920s, Oskar Klein and Theodor Kaluza proposed the five-dimensional hypothesis to explain the forces of nature, including gravity and the only known electromagnetic force.
The discovery of strong and weak nuclear forces, on the other hand, moved Klein and Kaluza’s theory forward. It was then combined with electromagnetic forces to make the Standard Model, which explains most, but not all, things that happen in nature.
As physicists look to String Theory to explain why gravity is so weak, the idea of a huge fifth dimension comes back up. This could also explain why there is dark matter.
To learn more about the crystalline structure of silicon, scientists at NIST bombarded it with neutrons and looked at the intensity, angles, and intensities of these particles to draw conclusions about the structure.
As neutrons move through the crystalline structure, they create standing waves between and on top of the rows or sheets of atoms. When these waves meet, they make tiny patterns called pendellosung oscillations. These oscillations tell us about the forces that neutrons in the structure have to deal with.
Each force is carried by particles whose range depends on how much mass they have.
So, a particle with no mass, like a photon, has an infinite range, and the same is true for a particle with mass. Putting limits on how far a force can reach also makes it less powerful. Recent experiments have shown that the strength of the possible fifth force is limited to a range of lengths from 0.02 to 10 nanometers. This gives scientists a range to look for the fifth dimension in which this force works.
More research in this area could soon lead to the discovery of the fifth dimension. This would be the first time that physics teachers would have to help their students understand an abstract idea.
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