The 5th-Dimensional Camera Project

"Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live."

- Albert Einstein

If you listened to the Theatre of the Mind interview we looked at last blog entry, you'll notice that I brought up the fifth dimension quite a number of times. Today, let's look at a very good reason for doing so.

The above picture comes from a project created by Jon Ardern and Anab Jain as "Superflux" in collaboration with scientists at Oxford University: go to http://superflux.in/blog/?p=910 to read more about the 5th-Dimensional Camera Project. I noticed David Deutsch's name on the list of distinguished persons consulted for this presentation: regular readers of this blog will know that I mention Dr. Deutsch's important work regularly, but it's always been my disappointment that in conversation with him three years ago he was not willing to embrace my fifth-dimensional approach to understanding Everett's Many Worlds and the "spooky" world of quantum mechanics.

Here's some info I received back from Jon and Anab:

Hi Rob,

We found your 'Imagining the Tenth Dimension' project very inspirational in the research and design of the Fifth-Dimensional Camera.

The designers of the project were myself Jon Ardern and Anab Jain as Superflux. We worked mainly with Dr. Andrew Briggs, Dr. John Rarity, Dr. Simon Benjamin from QIP IRC ( Quantum Information Processing Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration ) based at Oxford University. They were our main point of contact for understanding the Science, and the people we went to when we needed clarity on a concept or idea. This is the link to their website: http://www.qipirc.org/

The project was also backed by the EPSRC and the Royal College of Art, London.

In our conversation with Dr. David Deutsch we did not directly talk about fifth dimension as probability space, the conversation ended up being more about interpretations and misinterpretations of scientific investigation.

We did however show the first part of your introductory video to the scientists we were working with. This was in relation to our initial concepts for the project, but there was no objection in any way to your description of the 5th dimension.

All the best,

Jon & Anab

Here's another illustration from their Superflux blog. It shows a visualization of the branching timelines representing the parallel universes resulting from chance and choice, which are at the core of Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation, and which I've been insisting make more sense when we see that these branches occur in the fifth rather than the fourth dimension.


As I mentioned recently in The Forest, I hear regularly from teachers thanking me for the thought-provoking discussions they've had in the classroom after showing students my animation. I've remarked on a regular basis since the 2006 launch of my project that my "new way of thinking about time and space" seems to be moving closer to the new theories being advanced by mainstream physicists about the underlying structures of our reality, and I do hear regularly from people with a physics background who like my ideas. But having respected professors from the University of Oxford now willing to examine my concept that quantum superposition and Everett's Many Worlds can be much more easily understood if we accept that these events take place in the fifth dimension is definitely a major step forward for my project. So I am grateful to Jon and Anab for undertaking to create this demonstration, and for their work in helping to get my ideas out into the world.

Here's an entertaining video they made to help promote what this fanciful 5th-Dimensional Camera might be like if it is actually built some day.

The 5th Dimensional Camera: An Introduction from Superflux on Vimeo.

Enjoy the journey,

Rob Bryanton

Edit: Here's a youtube video to accompany this blog entry now:

A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o87TkFOR_Js

Next: Entangled Neurons