Four Are Not Enough
The mathematics used by Newton and Einstein to describe the universe assumes that the universe is a four dimensional entity with three physical dimensions and a domain of time. But Newton's description broke down because he assumed that certain properties such as mass remained constant under all conditions, even at very high velocities. Einstein's allowing for changing mass with changing velocity, a very simple but basic change, resulted in descriptions of a universe far more strange and wonderful than that of Newton. But it was still a four dimensional universe.
We have been looking into the earliest moments of the life of the universe and into the unimaginably microscopicly small building blocks of matter, the strange stuff called quantum foam. We've looked out to the farthest reaches of the universe, almost as far back as light existed or could move. We've seen evidence that some phenomena on the very largest scales or the very smallest scales cannot be explained by a set of only four dimensions.
How many dimensions are there? Well, humans can only conjecture concerning extensions to the universe beyond the four dimensions they can experience and imagine. If a phenomenon can be described in mathematics using ten dimensions or twelve dimensions, that doesn't mean the mathematics can't be simplified to fewer ... or isn't a special case of a system with many more dimensions.
We may never know. We can't go there from here.
Comments (3)
No intelligent comment from me...I'm just a cat after all. *Meow* ~Spot~
(Xanga ate my previous comment. I will try again.)
I subscribe to Discover magazine, which I find to be an informative source for science in layman's terms. Recently, they had an article about how the uncertainty principle and other laws of quantum physics fail to hold up at infinitessimally small nuclear distances, where gravity holds sway. We may be approaching a new paradigm shift in physics much like that of Newton, Einstein, or Planck.
infinity is in a grain of sand.
but i don't think it fits into the conscious brain well.
the subconscious, however........
how can we restrict dimensionality? if it ends, what's on the other side of the barrier?