Before we begin, I want to thank sparda4355 for the encouragement to post this thread. Without his prodding, it may never have been released to the public. People think I am crazy enough as it is.

How Many Dimensions

We currently exist in three dimensions. While doing so, we travel along a fourth (time). In addition to that, there are an unknown amount of additional dimensions that have all been theorized in a multitude of theories. This number ranges from 10 to 28 from what I have seen. Mathematically, this is all believed to be true. Stephen Hawkin has even measured at least one of them, as detailed in his book, The Universe in a Nutshell.

The number of additional dimensions is not important. What is important is that there are additional dimensions. How this is relevant to dark matter will soon become apparent.

Gravitational Lensing

Light is affected by gravity, and can bend in space due to the proximity of gravity wells (stars, planets, black holes, etc.). This bending can be detected by observing a known object in space (Galaxy X) from different angles, providing a way to map the area of gravitational effects.

The History Channel has a show entitled "The Universe: Dark Matter/Dark Energy" that explains how this works in a graphical representation. I found it very educational for understanding how exactly this phenomenon functions. Through the use of this tool, scientists have mapped out the areas of space they believe contain dark matter.

Explanation of Dark Matter

This is the part I disagree with. Scientists claim that dark matter is a particle that is extremely massive, but can't be detected by any known instrument. In addition, it is bombarding us billions of times a day while passing right through our bodies, our cities, our planet, without any negative effect.

One of their experiments was to freeze dwerium (probably have spelling wrong - really ultra dense atom) in a densely packed matrix (at the atomic level) to near absolute zero. This was done half a mile below the surface, to eliminate all the standard space garbage we are bombarded with. If a dark matter hits any of these atoms while it passes, it will immediately register movement, which is a temperature increase.

In two years of non stop monitoring, they have received 0 hits...although they still believe that billions of particles should have hit the detecting devices.

Where They Got it Wrong

My personal beliefs rely on some basic scientific principles. You might some of these in your first year science text books.

1) First, nature arbores a vacuum. This is important.
2) Second, if dimensions can be measured, they must have volume.
3) Third, if other dimensions exist, what is inside them?

Finally, a small little tidbit I want to point out.

4) Gravity crosses dimensions.

I can prove that last part, too. Remember the three dimensions we live in? (Height, Width, Depth for example.) Well, gravity is expressed in all three of those dimensions. Why is it limited to just these?

Conclusion

Dark matter is nothing more then matter existing in other dimensions that are part of our time-space architecture. Because it exists, it exerts gravity, causing the effects that we see through gravitational lensing.

We can't detect the matter because it is simply not present in our observable three dimensions. As such, any tool using three dimensional technologies will fail to detect it.

Until we learn to how to perceive these other dimensions, dark matter will remain hidden from us.

A most compelling rationality. I'd buy into that easily. Good thread!

Dark matter is nothing more then matter existing in other dimensions that are part of our time-space architecture. Because it exists, it exerts gravity, causing the effects that we see through gravitational lensing.

I think that is precisely what scientists believe dark matter is. Inter-dimensional matter. That is why we cannot measure it. Nothing in our current space time is able to interact with it, yet we can see evidence of it by its gravitational pull. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The latest show I watched on the subject never made any claims of that. There are still scientists they interviewed that believe it will interact with matter in our universe, so this is not a absolute belief among the scientific community. I think it is a facinating subject, and look forward to the next great find.

Star and flagged O.P.

I am no scientist, but over the years maintained a healthy interest in this sort of thing; I enjoy reading and have read many books on the subject, and try to catch up with science when ever possible.

Your theory is an interesting and compelling idea, I'm surprised other have not tried to implement it in some manner or another, but like the previous poster said; no-one really knows what dark matter actually is yet!

So I guess that leaves us to speculate as much as posible on the subject!

Can you explain, please, how matter that exists in (4+n) dimensional spacetime does not exist in 4-dimensional spacetime?

(Mandatory second line)

Regarding the dimensions part, I think the universe has infinite number of dimensions, because here on earth you have the ground the sky to refer to for dimensioning and positioning, but in the universe, there is no exact reference point for us to give dimensions all are mathematically created dimensions and the other dimensions are not yet known to us as the research is going on regarding that.