Despite our natural reluctance to assume that our senses are not sensitive to the

majority of the reality around us, there is a very strong arguement from basic
principles that the universe (even in our immediate surroundings) could be far more
complex than we can imagine.

One has only to compare the amount of man's knowledge obtained (or which could have
been obtained) by his unaided senses with the enormous increase provided by the
development of such devices as telescopes, microscopes, radio receivers and X-ray
machines, to realize how very limited we are. Note that the purpose of each of these is to
receive energy which is too weak or of the wrong form to be detected by any of the senses,
and to amplify or convert the information in that energy to a form or level which is within the
capacity of one of them. Study of a list of such artificial aids shows that they can be separated
into two distict categories. Telescopes, microscopes and similar "magnifying" techniques form
a continuous and open-ended chain of development. The urge to see farther and smaller has
always existed, and is fundamental to the extent of being instinctive. No matter how powerful
an instrument is built, there will always be some object of interest which is barely visible, and
so an awareness of things still beyond its range and an incentive to improve it. This has
encouraged the development of the necessary technology (lenses, etc.).

On the other hand, such developments as radio communication and X-ray examination
required the positive discovery of radio waves and X-rays before they could even be
contemplated. Only then could the requisite technology be developed so that they could be
used to gain further knowledge. One would expect any "extra" dimensions to come into this
category, and there could well be other equally fundamental "unknowns." Until an initiating
discovery is made, it is extremely difficult to conceive of their existence, speculate on their
characteristics or imagine the consequences.

The particular case of radio waves and X-rays are also excellent examples of the limitations
of our senses in other ways, since they are two examples of electromagnetic radiation. Such
waves have been used or studied with wavelengths extending over a range of 1016
(10,000,000,000,000,000) although our senses respond only to visible light, which covers a
range of barely 2:1 in wavelength, and outside this range we must rely entirely on aids. On a
dark night, it is possible to see the light from a small torch bulb (radiating about a fiftieth of a
watt of energy of visible light) at a range of about half a mile. On the other hand, you could
stand within a few feet of an aerial radiating over a million watts of radio-frequency energy
and be unaware that the transmitter is switched on.