In Search of New Frontiers

Exploration has taken mankind to new continents and far-off planets. Now a gigantic underground particle collider will attempt to explore the deepest mysteries of the universe. The billion-dollar question is: Will it succeed, or mark the end of science as we know it?

Since the dawn of time, man has been driven to explore his world. Whether it is the exploration of the New World in the 15th century or the search for life on Mars in the 21st, the unknown beckons us with infinite possibilities. Our exploration not only diverts us from the mundane concerns by engaging our imagination with thoughts of what might be, but also promises a brighter future and answers to our deepest questions.

Ever since we conquered the secrets of the readily accessible world, exploration has become the domain of scientists peering into the macro and micro worlds. The far reaches of outer space and the inner workings of the tiniest physical particles are the only places left in our world where we can “boldly go where no man has gone before,” as Star Trek states repeatedly.

The Subatomic Particle Accelerator – a New Scientific Tool

This time, however, rather than seeking to explore new territory, scientists are driven by the desire to unlock the secrets of the universe and of our very existence: Where did the universe come from? What are the building blocks of matter? Is there more to life than what we currently experience? Are there undiscovered principles of nature?

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located near Geneva, Switzerland, has been designed to answer these questions and more. This gigantic, 27 kilometer (16.75 mile)-long instrument can accelerate subatomic particles to 99.999999% of the speed of light .The 8 billion dollar project is a collaboration of over 10,000 scientists and engineers from over 100 countries. It also brings together hundreds of universities and laboratories worldwide that hope that they will be able to generate and study subatomic particles that, until now, were no more than theory.

An experiment called ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) aims to answer questions about the origin of the universe by recreating - on a miniscule level - the conditions of less than a millionth of a second after the Big Bang. ATLAS (A Torroidal LHC ApparatuS) and CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) will investigate the possibility of other dimensions existing outside of our perception of space, time, and motion.

In fact, the science of Kabbalah investigates these very questions, but its scientific method dates back thousands of years and uses a radically different method of experimentation.

Same Questions, Different Research Methods

Several centuries of conventional scientific research have resulted in vast amounts of data, but each discovery generates new questions. These point to the need for yet higher levels of knowledge before any phenomenon can be fully grasped. Scientists now recognize that their research is leading them to a primary source of influence that lies outside our world, requiring a drastically different method of investigation.

For thousands of years, Kabbalists have written that the greater part of reality, and the answers to the major questions of life, lie in a dimension beyond the physical world, called “the Upper World.” This dimension contains the origin of everything that exists in our world: every atom, cell, and organism. It contains the causes of every phenomenon in our world, as well as laws of nature that are imperceptible to us in the physical world (similar to the way electromagnetism was unknown to us in the past). There are no material objects in the Upper Worlds, but only forces that affect us and our world.

Furthermore, there is a precise and definite connection between every force in the Upper World (the cause) and its consequence (the effect) in our world. Thus, to study and thoroughly understand any object or phenomenon in our world, we must start by understanding the laws and causes that operate in the Upper World,. Then, we can trace their influences downward to see how they impact us in this world, allowing us to see the source and essence of all the complex behaviors and phenomena that baffle us today.

The Boundary between the Worlds

While it is possible to perceive the connections when looking from the Upper World into ours, it is impossible to do the reverse. However, the scientists of our world are trying to do just that – to research non-physical causes and influences from our physical world. With the prolonged stalemate of physics and other physical sciences, scientists are on their way to recognizing that studying the non-physical realm is simply beyond their reach.

It is similar to someone trying to find his way through an enormous maze, where there appears to be no rhyme or reason to the different pathways through the maze. For someone looking at the maze from above, however, the picture is clear: dead ends, hazards, and the path to the exit become obvious. Kabbalists have found the way to rise above the maze of our world, while scientists are still trying to navigate it from within.

Hence, the scientists of this world will not be able to find their way to the Upper World by earthly methods because there is an impenetrable boundary between our world and the Upper World. As researchers approach this boundary, they are discovering that the “unknowns” in their experiments exceed the “knowns.”

The Next Step for Science: Research through the Sixth Sense

But, one might ask, how then did the Kabbalists discover the Upper World? The answer is, they did it by developing a unique method that enables human perception to surpass our normal abilities, the five senses we were born with. This method allows us to gradually perceive through an additional, sixth sense - a sense that perceives the non-physical and primary part of reality – the Upper World.

However, such perception can never be attained through our inborn five senses. Even if scientists magnify the five senses to super-human levels with such high-tech instruments as the Large Hadron Collider, the difference between the data revealed and our natural sensory capabilities is merely quantitative rather than qualitative. The instruments simply transform macro and micro measurements, and various physical frequencies, into a range that we can understand and interpret with our normal five senses and our earthly minds. Therefore, these instruments will never be able to encounter and tell us about the Upper World, the realm beyond this world.

On the other hand, projects like the Large Hadron Collider show that scientists are asking the right questions: Where did we come from? Why are we here? What are the forces that control our world?

The problem is, they’re looking for answers in the wrong places. Once science has exhausted all avenues of research in the physical world, it will be ready to experiment with the scientific method of Kabbalah and try a vastly new approach to researching reality. Then, scientists will surely discover new frontiers and find the answers that the world so desperately needs in this turbulent day and age.