
The Case for Fewer Dimensions - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/29/scaling/the-case-for-fewer-dimensions
======
Jun8
"If we could ascend into that higher domain, we would free ourselves from the
straitjacket of ordinary space. We could bend our arm through an extra
dimension to reach into a locked safe, or see the insides of a human body laid
out before us."

This is often brought up in discussions on 4th dimensions but think about it:
For the 4th dimensional being to see inside a closed 3D space, photons from
that space should reach its visual organs. From the viewpoint of beings in 3D
these photons would be "lost". This energy discrepancy should be detectable by
placing 3D sensors around that space.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Not if they're replaced by other photons coming _in_ from the 4th dimension
into 3D space.

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jbb555
It's starting to seem to me that none of this is real. That we are unable to
see how things _really_ work because we are a part of that thing.

I'm not saying that we are in a simulation. But imagine if we were. A
simulation that calculated the state of every cell based on various rules. But
these cells are NOT layed out in a grid that somehow maps to reality at all.
That gravity and even spacial dimensions are just artifacts of how we interact
with all of this. That in no sense does gravity cause anything fundemental to
be attracted, it's just that when certain configurations of state interact
they cause other effect that we perceive as gravity.

I'm not saying we are in a simulation, just that reality might be so different
from what we are looking at that, the effects like gravity and matter and
movement and dimensions don't really have any physical meaning at all except
as how we perceive the interaction of states.

That abstract math might be the only way to every analyse this, and that at
some level gravity and so on are meaningless, we have to find some way to
model the abstract system states. And in some way investigating the physics
that we perceive is meaningless.

Ok.. Enough. Does this make any sense?

~~~
1_player
> we are unable to see how things really work because we are a part of that
> thing.

I remember when I was 14, talking quantum physics with my father, I said "what
if everything is governed by a set of equations that by their very nature say
that it is impossible to know what they are or measure them." \-- just some
teenager ingenuity that may very well be true.

For fun I like to entertain the idea that after we die an extradimensional
"me" removes a Rift-like device from them saying "wow.. What a ride, that felt
_real_". Has any philosopher written about this?

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kazinator
Perhaps there is less room at small scales because the whole simulation that
is running the show has run out of floating point exponent space and is
working off denormals. :)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denormal_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denormal_number)

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powera
"As a result, gravity, which is a pushover on everyday scales, catches up with
the other forces and becomes their equal at a sub-sub-subatomic distance known
as the Planck scale (around a few trillionths of a trillionth of a trillionth
of a meter)."

What? How is that not completely wrong? Gravity is at its most important on
large scales. Or are they just badly describing a (known-to-be-broken) quantum
gravity model?

~~~
yk
If you compare the strength of the gravitational attraction between the proton
and electron in a Hydrogen atom to electro magnetic force, then gravity is
negligible. Or as my physics teacher once put it, while picking up a book:
"There is an entire planet pulling on the book, but I win."

So yes, Gravity is the most important force, but that is a consequence of the
existence of positive and negative charges, not of the strength of gravity.

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cows_i_have
Dimensionality is a common problem in many sciences but this article is really
crazy! Maybe we won't know some of the answers to these questions until we
make our own black holes?

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the8472
> Please sign in to Nautilus Prime or turn your cookies on to continue viewing
> this site.

Meh.

~~~
ihuman
Does this link work for you?

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Anauti...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Anautil.us%2Fissue%2F29%2Fscaling%2Fthe-
case-for-fewer-dimensions&oq=cache%3Anautil.us%2Fissue%2F29%2Fscaling%2Fthe-
case-for-fewer-
dimensions&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.834j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8)

~~~
the8472
It does.

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phkahler
The leaps here are just ridiculous. With one hypothesis (yeah I'm not gonna
lie and call this stuff a theory) spcetime looks the same at all scales - the
definition of fractal!!! Woohoo spacetime is fractal at small scales!
Wheeeeee!!! Either something is really lost in translation here, or the people
coming up with this stuff are. Either way I can read non technical articles on
science or tech any more.

~~~
alphydan
If you want to learn more about how space may have a fractal structure Laurent
Nottale [0] developed a rigorous theory around it. It's definitely not
considered mainstream, but him and his team are respected physicists. A more
technical intro can be found here:
[http://elbereth2009.obspm.fr/~luthier/nottale/arIJMP2.pdf](http://elbereth2009.obspm.fr/~luthier/nottale/arIJMP2.pdf)

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent_Nottale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent_Nottale)

