A MONTH ago we reported, with perhaps a tiny hint of scepticism, on a construction company called Snibor that claims to 鈥渂uild in every dimension鈥� (4 March). How could we be so out of touch as to doubt, even implicitly, its ability to 鈥渆xceed the conventional three鈥� dimensions? Keith Simpson chides us for not keeping up to date. 鈥淭ake a quick trip to ,鈥� he admonishes. Once there, we clicked on 鈥淭he Transformation鈥� and learned that 鈥渂y the year 2012, humanity, mother earth and possibly other planets in our solar system, will make a transition from our current 3rd dimension, to the 4th and 5th dimension soon after鈥�.
Further on we read: 鈥淲e are approaching the Harmonic Concordance, which will take place on November 8/9th 2003鈥� A gateway will open up in the heavens, which will allow greater light energy to flow through to this part of the solar system. Folks, this will herald in an even greater vibrational frequency change (higher), and will bring humanity towards greater awareness.鈥� That鈥檚 odd. Did anyone notice that change in vibrational frequency in 2003?
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At the foot of the home page we come to the real point of all this: 鈥淗APPY SHOPPING!鈥� And we learn that if you spend only A$150 on Transformation 2012 gear you will receive a free pair of wonderful Detox Foot Patches which, if the before-and-after photos are to be believed, go authentically icky-coloured after use.
Intrigued by the idea of therapeutic foot patches we find another site, , where we read about First Detox Foot Patches. These may or may not be the same as the transformational ones, but here they cost 拢17. It seems that they are 鈥渁pproved by the Food and Drug Administration鈥� and are 鈥渢he world鈥檚 most advanced patch with the highest negative ion emission count measured in excess of 1200 per patch鈥�. In which dimension are 1200 ions significant, though?
SPARRING physicists provided some entertainment at the annual Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate, held last month at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Physicists Andrei Linde, Michio Kaku, Lisa Randall, Lawrence Krauss and Virginia Trimble tussled over the theme 鈥淯niverse: One or Many?鈥� taking a packed audience on a dizzying trip to the farthest reaches of the cosmological imagination. Sometimes the trip was too unsettling even for the physicists themselves.
Kaku, of the City University of New York, spoke at one point of the possibility of tunnelling into other universes through space-time foam, harnessing the power of negative energy. 鈥淕enesis happens all the time,鈥� he said. 鈥淐ontinuous genesis in an ocean of Nirvana, and the ocean is an 11-dimensional hyperspace.鈥�
As Kaku spoke, Krauss, of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, looked as if he was about to have an aneurysm. He turned to Kaku. 鈥淚f there are an infinite number of universes,鈥� he declared, 鈥淚 can鈥檛 imagine one in which I agree with what you just said.鈥�
During the question and answer session, a young member of the audience asked if our universe was the first in the tree of branching universes projected on the backdrop behind the speakers. 鈥淚t鈥檚 extraordinarily unlikely that we live in the first universe,鈥� Linde, of Stanford University, explained. 鈥淲e live in the middle of infinity.鈥�
That was too much for the chair of the evening, Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York. 鈥淲e live in the middle of infinity?鈥� he repeated. 鈥淒id those words really just come out of your mouth?鈥�
鈥淐hina鈥檚 Ministry of Health explicitly banned the sale of human organs on Monday,鈥� we announced in New 杏吧原创 (1 April, p 7). Gavin Fourie is delighted 鈥� yet he can鈥檛 help wondering about the other days of the week鈥�
THE UK-based online news service Life Style Extra reported on 2 April: 鈥淢ore than a third of a million British victims of bird flu are to be buried in plague pits if an outbreak of the deadly disease takes hold.鈥�
Not quite the kind of thing that is normally meant by 鈥渓ife style鈥�, was our reaction. What鈥檚 more, as reader Janet de Castro Lopo notes, it appeared in LSE鈥檚 鈥淗ealthy Living鈥� section.
A PHOTO of a street sign in Ulm, Germany, arrives from David Craig. The sign has illuminated digits which can be changed to indicate how many spaces are available in the town鈥檚 car parks. But the distances to the car parks are also shown in changeable lights. David was puzzled until he remembered that Ulm is the birthplace of Albert Einstein and it all started to make sense.
FINALLY: 鈥淲alking on a ceiling is very different from normal walking,鈥� Stanislav Gorb of the Max Planck Institute for Metals research in Stuttgart, Germany, says in a press release, 鈥渂ecause gravity tends to pull an inverted insect away instead of pressing it to the surface.鈥� Thanks for the insight.