The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

way that, regardless of their speed through the medium, they always give the same number for the speed of light (Lorentz, 1904). The existence of a real æther thus eliminates a number of paradoxes that boggle the minds, not only of students, but also experienced practitioners of physics (Humphreys, 1994, p. 84). EVIDENCE THAT THE FABRIC OF SPACE IS FOUR- DIMENSIONAL Think about the shape of this fabric, the space we live in. It appears to have only three dimensions (directions): length, width, and height. Lay a sheet of paper flat on a table. It is 8.5 inches wide by 11 inches long, but it is only 0.003 inches thick. It does not occupy much of the height direction at all. Now roll up the paper like a scroll. You used the third dimension, height, in the air above the table, to roll it up, and the thinness of the paper in that dimension allowed you to do so. So if an object is thin in one of its dimensions, you can roll it up. But here is an amazing thing … Scripture says the same thing about the heavens: And the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll — Isaiah 34:4 (NKJ) And like a mantle You will roll them [the heavens] up — Hebrews 1:12 (NAS) Here again God depicts the heavens as a real material that He can manipulate. In the three directions we can see, the heavens are very thick. Yet God says He will roll them up like a scroll (Fig. 5). That implies that the heavens are thin in a fourth direction that we cannot see . The verses in the second section comparing the heavens to a curtain of fabric support that idea, since a fabric is thin in one of its dimensions. Moreover, there must be more room in that fourth direction, which allows the rolling-up to occur. The future tense of these verses implies the heavens are not in a rolled-up condition at present. In the fourth dimension we cannot perceive, space is nearly flat, like an unrolled scroll or cloak. The three dimensions we can see would exist as a thin sheet within a larger four-dimensional space, for which I would like to borrow the theoretical term “hyperspace” (Kaku, 1994). As I pointed out in Starlight and Time (Humphreys, 2004, pp. 93-96), the extra dimension makes sense of the equations of Einstein’s general theory of relativity by giving room and a direction in which the “spacetime continuum” can be bent. Einstein’s first cosmology using general relativity made explicit use of four spatial dimensions , with time being a fifth dimension (Einstein, 1917). Later cosmologies, such as the Big Bang theories, use four spatial dimensions implicitly, without spelling out the fourth one. Most theorists avoid thinking of the extra dimension as anything more than a mathematical convenience (Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler, 1973). Some commentators, not knowing how the heavens could be rolled up literally, propose that the Scriptural similies (Humphreys, 2014, last paragraph of the introduction) I cite above are instead metaphors , figurative ways of saying “the heavens will be ended.” However, the “Timothy” principle of straightforward interpretation I have proposed (Humphreys, 1994, pp. 55-57) makes me prefer to try to take these verses as meaning the heavens will be rolled up physically — not figuratively. If, for example, “rolled up” were figurative, these verses would be almost meaningless. They would be saying, “the heavens will have something figurative done to them like a scroll or a mantle.” But what the figurative “something” might actually mean would be left entirely to the commentators to guess about. It makes much more sense to think that the words mean what they say, that the physical heavens will be rolled up physically like we roll up a scroll or mantle (Bullinger, 1898, p. 727). Such a rolling-up apparently requires an extra dimension, an extra direction. This fourth direction is not time. Relativity theory treats time as a real dimension, in our case, a fifth dimension. That is, the fabric is really space time . Its time dimension, or direction, differs from the space directions in several ways. First, we only observe a narrow slice of time, the present. Second, the slice seems to be moving through time, from the past into the future. Third, physical phenomena can only develop in one direction of time, toward the future. For example, if we toss a stone into a pond, we only see waves coming from the impact, forward in time, even though all the equations we know would allow waves to travel backward in time also. If that were the case, we would first see waves in the pond converging on the future point of impact, then the stone hitting the water, and finally waves radiating outward from the impact. In real life, something seems to compel the waves to travel only futureward. But in spite of the special nature of time, the equations of relativity seem to say that the past and the future physically exist, and that the timeward direction is just as real physically as the space directions. This, of course, is an interpretation of time that is open to question, discussion, and further research. Why can we not see the 4 th spatial direction? We are creatures confined within a fabric which is very thin in the fourth direction (so we also are very thin in the 4 th direction). It appears that we usually see light coming at us only from within the fabric, not from outside it. But why can we not imagine it, visualizing it as a direction perpendicular to the three directions we can see? I do not know. Speaking for myself, my imagination is limited to the kinds of things I can see in three dimensions. I have a similar problem with time as a dimension. I cannot see either my past or my future, or point to a direction for them. But I do perceive myself moving through time, out of the past and toward the future. Perhaps we can Humphreys ◀ Accelerated cooling ▶ 2018 ICC 733 Figure 5. Rolling up the heavens like a scroll. Galaxy image: M81, Spitzer Space Telescope.