Posted on 07/21/2018 6:18:51 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
New findings are fueling an old suspicion that fundamental particles and forces spring from strange eight-part numbers called “octonions.”
“Octonions are to physics what the Sirens were to Ulysses,”
Decades on, no particles beyond those of the Standard Model have been found. Meanwhile, the strange beauty of the octonions has continued to attract the occasional independent-minded researcher, including Furey, the Canadian grad student who visited Günaydin four years ago. Looking like an interplanetary traveler, with choppy silver bangs that taper to a point between piercing blue eyes, Furey scrawled esoteric symbols on a blackboard, trying to explain to Günaydin that she had extended his and Gürsey’s work by constructing an octonionic model of both the strong and electromagnetic forces.
Near as I can determine, it only resulted in making my brain hurt.
Your mileage may vary.
There’s no link
Just a bit of temporary brain damage?
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-octonion-math-that-could-underpin-physics-20180720/
Why do they have to invent new stupid words?
What was wrong with “Octal” (base 8 numbering system)
This young lady would do a number on Mr Laz.
Very true. Sounded like base 8 to me.
Yeah, but Laz would like it though.
Appears to be a bit more ‘complex’ than a Base-8 number system.
Also discovered in 1843, I tend to suspect the terminology predates the current use of Octal.
After all, I almost, or at least have some hope of, understanding octonians. E8 is much further out there.
Its way more involved than base 8.
Such things are really just nomenclature. You can do the same math with base whatever.
Imagine a number line, then a 2D Cartesian coordinate system, then a 4D coordinate system, then an 8D.
Thats a beginning.
This stuff makes my head hurt.
This has absolutely NOTHING to do with the base of the numbers and EVERYTHING to do with dimensionality. The number line we’re all familiar with is one dimensional. Imaginary numbers (see (SQRT(-1)) are two dimensional. They are heavily used in, for example, electromagnetic field theory and quantum mechanics. Four dimensional numbers are used to describe space-time in relativistic physics. These folks theorize that elementary particle physics may perhaps end up being best described using 8 dimensional numbers.
The article and accompanying ‘explanatory material’ is a good example why most people are turned off by higher level mathematics. For those who studied A through Y, Z seems natural enough, but for those who only studied say A through D which is sufficient to perform routine calculations, advanced graduate level (lie) group theory looks like so much mental masturbation. Few topics exponentially aquire arcane buzzwords faster than the obscure corners of mathematics, and makes a good topic to ‘baffle em with bullshit’.
Octonian
Is that like an Octopus with an Abacus?
This stuff is fun, but more than a bit beyond my ability to do any worthwhile work in the subject. I dropped out of grad school in physics and went over to the engineering school.
Or with eight Abaci?
Your’re joking ... but you’re also on the right track. Each of octopus’ eight abacuses counts along a different one of eight mutually orthogonal axes. A drawing of such a thing is impossible.
I did engineering school right off, then tried to understand, oh, field theory and Einsteinian physics in audit classes and the like.
I know when I’m over my head.
Did you read the article? One of the bigs in dealing with this stuff is a Fields Medal winner. That tells me a lot about how hard-core and “out there” this business is ... and where I stand in relation to it. (That would be “sitting on the bleachers, cheering on the “A Team”).
> Few topics exponentially aquire arcane buzzwords faster than the obscure corners of mathematics, and makes a good topic to ‘baffle em with bullshit’.
I believe that it is in almost all cases intentional, and guilty knowledge that you can push all the symbols around on a page that you like without ever having to have a physical tie to reality.
Mathematicians have taken over and destroyed the field of physics.
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