Writing for The Christian Science Monitor Michelle Thaller reports on the Brane Theory for an eleven dimensional universe.
There are some theoretical reasons to believe that there are other branes out there besides our own, separated from us by a dimension we can't travel in. Cosmologists are getting pretty excited about a new model of how the universe began, with one or more branes interacting with each other. There may even be observational evidence of this in the microwave background radiation, leftover heat from the very beginning of our universe. The implications of this theory are staggering. Not only is the door left wide open to the possibility of entire parallel universes existing out there in the Bulk, but now we have the real possibility that gravity may allow us to explore them, to a very limited degree.
Brane is short for membrane and is a reference to the idea that our 3-dimensional universe might be enclosed in a higher dimensional membrane of some sort.
By Randall Parker at 2003 September 30 11:14 AM Space Exploration | TrackBackIf other branes can affect ours gravitationally, could the "dark matter" -- which is observed only by its gravitational effects -- be in another brane?
Or could a parallel universe be trying to send us signals with faint variations in gravitational fields?
Could the forth dimension be the higher dimension? Could all brane dimensions be fractal in nature, part of a geometric symmetry? The M-set is real, no? And the limits of it are...what?
Have you ever wondered why we test theory and try to figure out what is out there? The truth of the matter is that the earth is like a molecule to something bigger so everything that we know and dont know exists inside a higher being and we are trying to find a way out. But it is a long journey and plus we would not be able to survive on the outside so we should all just eat peaches and whittle. It just makes things easier :P