You are asking very deep questions, for which no clear answers can be demonstrated. Nevertheless, they are worth asking and reflecting upon, IMHO. For insight, consult _The Mind of God_ by Paul Davies about foundational issues of physics, creation, and “Why?” Also consult _Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty_ by Morris Kline, which delves into the still-debatable question of to what extent mathematics is invented or discovered, and its internal contradictions such as logic paradoxes, infinite set dilemmas, and the infamous Gödel Paradox of incompleteness (of any mathematical system.)

The book was recommended to me by a teacher iin my junior high school. It completely changed my view of the world, and I have lost track of the number of people I have suggested it to.

Gene Levine

I just listened to the interview with Lisa today, and it was thrilling. I have been working myself on the question, why are there three *large* dimensions of space? (There are probably more, like a total of 10 or 11 space dimensions, but the rest are curled up very small.) After extrapolating electromagnetic interactions to spaces of other dimensions, I found at least two arguments:

1. In spaces with other than one or three dimensions, an oscillating charge does not project the same *average* field along the axis of oscillation. That is due to two things: the combination of “projection� of its retarded distance – where it would be had it continued at the velocity it had when light left it – and the distortion of the field due to Lorentz contraction, which weakens it to
gamma^(1-N) the value it has at rest. N is the number of large space dimensions. That would impose a net force on a second “target� charge, and violate conservation of momentum and energy. The one-dimensional case is rule out due to infinite potential energy (why didn’t Dewdney realize that about the 2-D Planiverse?)

2. Let two charges be connected by a reasonably rigid rod. Then, accelerate the rod along its length. The combined force between the charges will be derived from the sort of considerations given in (1.), as the projected field of each charge catches up to the other charge. Then we must take into account the relativistic stress-correction to the momentum and energy of the rod. Only in three dimensions of space does that equal in net the effective momentum the charges should have given their potential energy. (In higher dimensions, taking the integral of f = q1q2/r^(N-1), that potential w.r.t. infinity is:
-q1q2r^(2-N)/(2-N). )

I hope I can publish the full development of this before long. I don’t think anyone else has an explicit proof that N *must* equal three, only reasons it was more likely to form that way, or oddities like being unfriendly to life, distorted wave propagation etc. (see Barrow and Tipler’s _The Anthropic Cosmological Principle_ for great discussion of this.)

Neil Bates

I’m wondering after listening to Lisa Randall if this play between the dimensions that we are used to floating around in might be a way to develop sensitivity to moving from one dimension into another. With practice, could a person possibly be able to develop the perception muscles enough to perceive dimensions hitherto un-seen.

Moreover, Robin the Substitute Blog-Mistress rocks too. (You got a great voice and delivery, girl.)

Rachel: I checked Flatland out from my local library earlier today (as if I needed yet another frickin’ book to read!!!) It’s off to a great beginning, too.

Anyone: is Professor Randall’s book readable for science-imbeciles (like me)?

Light does not experience “timeâ€?; it is instantaneously emitted and absorbed from its point of view no matter how great the distance is between emission and absorption. Therefore ALL time is NOW. What separates the presumed past from NOW is distance which grows at the speed of light. Time is an infinite series of dimensionless NOW points as Lynds also seems to note. He also notes that there are no static instances in time which negates the idea of a quantum unit of time (or a chronon which is 5×10 raised to the minus 43rd seconds – i.e. the time it takes light to traverse the Planck distance). If the Multiverse is oscillating (i.e., the universe is its own clock) with a period of 2 chronons, then time while being dimensionless and continuous would appear to be quantized.

An interesting sidenote regarding time and time travel: A couple of my favorite physicists, Richard Feynman and John Wheeler advanced the idea that a positron is identical to an electron moving backwards in time. This leads to the theory that only 1 electron or elementary particle is necessary, it’s just VERY busy.

“I once asked my physicist friend David Bohm this question: From the perspective of modern science, apart from the question of misrepresentation, what is wrong with the belief in the independent existence of things? His response was telling. He said that if we examine various ideologies that tend to divide humanity, such as racism, extreme nationalism, and Marxist class struggle, one of the keys factors of their origin is the tendency to perceive things as inherently divided and disconnected. From this misconception springs the belief that each of these divisions is essentially independent and self-existent. Bohm’s response, grounded in his work in quantum physics, echoes the ethical concern about harboring such beliefs that worried Nagarjuna, who wrote nearly two thousand years before. Granted, strictly speaking, science does not deal with questions of ethics and value judgments, but the fact remains that science, being a human endeavor, is still connected to the basic question of the well-being of humanity. So in a sense, there is nothing surprising about Bohm’s response. I wish there were more scientists with his understanding of the interconnectedness of science, its conceptual frameworks, and humanity.�

That is interesting. On more thing to consider is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle forbids us to know both position and momentum within limits of uncertainty. However, momentum is related to the time rate of change of position, that is momentum is velocity times mass, and velocity is the time rate of change of poisiton (dP/dt where P is position and t is time)

Since the uncertainty principle seems to be the central issue in alot of the spooky behavior of QM, I think it is no coincidence that this is related to two “independent” physical qunatities where one is the first derivative of the other with respect to time. And we have never had an adequate, rigorous definition of what time is in the first place. Einstein simply defines time as that which is measured by a clock. Maybe Lynds is on to something when he proposes time is an illusion, I agree but for probably very different reasons. (see my comments on the wave function, wave function collapse, and the Everet many worlds interpretation of QM)

My pet theory, I believe in the Everet Many Worlds interpretation of QM, in particular I beleive that wave function collapse is an illusion. I think Roger Penrose has described something like this. In particular, a very strange experiment called a delayed choice qunatum eraser, which was in fact confirmed by Kim, et al in Phys.Rev.Lett. 84 1-5 (2000) “A Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser”, I think supports this interpetation. In this experiment they seem to show through the magic of quantum entanglement that the result of an observed event can be changed AFTER the event has been “observed” by a detector. The only way this is possible is that if in fact BOTH outcomes occur, and the wave function splits into a perpetual superposition of each state, but through quantum entanglement the wave functtion “state” of the second particle is simply a result of the complimentary state of the entangled particle’s wave function, which was “observed” by the primary detector to be either in one state or another. Whether we observe wave like or particle like behavior at the primary detector is simply a matter of which part of the wave function we inspect. The wave function does not collapse, and both results occur with equal validity. We do not in fact choose which part of the wave function we get to inspect, that is determined by our own wave function which is basically which of the many possible “universes” we exist in. We ourselves are part of the overal wave function of the universe so we can never “see” the whole thing, but that does not mean that the wave function has collapsed or ceases to exist.

One more thing, all this spooky tree hugging crystal loving nonsense about consciousness and energy and QM is super neeto but the real difference between science and mysticism is that science is confined to those things which we can show to be true through experiment and observation, while mysticism simply dispenses with the inconvenient need to verify that what they say is actually true through some kind of observable result.

Well, I guess thats kind of like string theory, isn’t it.

Is there an observable cause and effect there that could lead to a measurable force?

As for the Hindu cosmology reflecting this idea that universe has divided itself into smaller bits, this is not limited to Hinduism.

read the Religious Origin Beliefs section of this page:

http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=1w8ka3276c140?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Origin+belief&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc03b&linktext=origin%20beliefs

There are basically two ‘creation” theories 1) out of chaos, order was created and 2)out of the one, many were created. Most religions are based on one or the other. And that choice is fundamental to the culture of the religion, since number one believes chaos is the antithesis of ‘god’ and creation, but doesn’t necessarily imply an ultimate goal other than keeping chaos at bay. and number 2 believes that ‘remembrance’ – regaining consciousness of the one self – is the ultimate goal, and does not imply any concern about the nature of things as they are now.

Interestingly, different aspects of science embrace different cosmologies. I’m not sure that the two cosmologies are incompatible. But it seems that if Quantum Physics is seeking a grand unifying theory, it may belie the fact that Quantum Physicists inherently believe in the 2nd cosmology theory.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4666334

Greene/String Theory/ Science Friday

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1045763

I have been listening to old audio tapes on the subject ( off of the radio). Chris did some excellent ones for “The Connection” that unfortunately I cannot link for you because they are not available although one is with Arno Penzias here:

http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2000/10/20001016_b_main.asp

Here is one that Terry Gross did with Brian Greene (The Elegant Universe)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4495488

Sounds like the net of Indra…

In the words of Sir Charles Eliot:

“In the Heaven of Indra, there is said to be a network of pearls, so arranged that if you look at one you see all the others reflected in it. In the same way each object in the world is not merely itself but involves every other object and in fact IS everything else.”

Nikos: Isn’t that something close to the basic preimise of Hindu cosmology, i.e. that all things in the universe are simply parts of Brahman, who split himself up into many varying sorts of pieces to try and better understand himself? (that may be a deeply flawed interpretation, I can’t remember where I got it from).

Jazzman, however, likely has a different take on this than me.

And if I may return to the concept of energy for a bit… indeed I had not considered the bowl AS energy. But even so, we’re still talking about energy in mathematical terms with appropriate units thrown in. We can see, feel, and measure the effect of energy being transferred, or transformed, and (thanks to the conservation of energy) we can even determine how much energy we’re dealing with in a given situation. But we cannot directly observe the energy itself.

To Diemos: it seems to help if you have unusual eyebrows or a really cool goatee!

Day Late: The Universe In A Nutshell was at my library — I checked it out and it’s terrific. It’s sumptuously illustrated and wryly humorous to boot.
Thanks!

To be able to isolate “E” as in “E=MC^2″ on the left-hand-side
makes it seem like a noun, ’cause you can point to it, but that
don’t make it so

Sorry, I’ll stop now, probably only amusing myself….