From: wthyde1953@gmail.com   
      
   Paul S Person wrote:   
   > On 6 Jan 2026 17:56:36 GMT, ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) wrote:   
   >   
   >    
   >   
   >>   A physics newsgroup had this subject recently, "Hidden dimensions   
   >>   could explain where mass comes from", so I asked the chatbot to   
   >>   write a story where mass is brought to our universe from a hidden   
   >>   dimension. It came out much longer than I expected!   
   >   
   >    
   >   
   > Huh, nothing left.   
   >   
   > I hope they have some mathematical basis for these hidden dimensions   
   > and are not simply grasping at whatever they can think of in their   
   > frustration.   
      
   All of these (so far) unconfirmable ideas, supersymmetry and extra   
   dimensional theories, have very nice mathematical properties which solve   
   many heretofore difficult problems, like infinities that show up in   
   equations where they have no right to be.  Mind you, if I'd spent my   
   career working on supersymmetry I'd be getting pretty antsy about now   
   given that we've yet to find a single supersymmetric particle.   
      
   As explained to me by more knowledgeable types, it makes too much sense   
   to not be true, but still, I'd be worried.   
      
   The idea of hidden dimensions is not a new one, being proposed first by   
   Kaluza in 1921.  He showed that if there were a fifth dimension, General   
   Relativity and Electromagnetism could be unified naturally.  It is not,   
   as polemicists assert, some modern failure of physics.   
      
   I recall being quite irritated when we skipped Kaluza-Klein theory (as   
   it has come to be known) in my GR course.  My impression was that as   
   there was no way of empirically testing it then (as is still the case   
   today) our professor regarded it as a mathematically interesting   
   curiosity and taught us instead another attempt at a unified field   
   theory (his own, as it happens) without any extra dimensions.   
      
   Last I heard of him he was in his eighties and still publishing on GR   
   and particle physics.  I wonder if he continued to work in 4D, or found   
   an extra dimension or seven useful?   
      
   William Hyde   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)