It seems difficult to propagate the idea that a fourth dimension can represent flow, of time, energy, heat or information. I have promoted this as a possible point of view. The paradigm shift is to equally divide energy among 4 dimensions, 3 of which are spatial and one of which is flow. This approach can help model 3/4 metabolic scaling and dark energy. Accounting for dark energy in our era, from 1998 until now in 2019, is widely described as one of the most difficult problems facing astrophysics and perhaps all of physics.

Adding a fourth dimension seems a slight innovation but availing some remarkable consequences.

Shifting conceptual reference frames a difficult task, and achieving such a shift a momentous achievement.

To a large extent the impediments involved in shifting paradigms was the subject of the famous work of Thomas Kuhn on the structure of scientific revolutions.

On one hand, science seems to appreciate the importance of paradigm shifts. On the other hand, there are so many novel ideas contending for validation, and many of them are wrong.

In confronting difficult questions in modern science, does science underestimate the difficulty of changing paradigms?