Indeed, Greene is only speaking in the interview of the conventional, compactified Kaluza-Klein extra spatial dimensions, but in his presentation on PBS (I think it was) he also spoke of the higher dimensional theories, inter-dimensionality and included Cumrun Vafa in the program (extra time dimensions). For that reason, I believe he is open to the other theories as well.
Plus, he said this in the article:
But I digress...
I certainly do agree with you that it is premature to count the dimensions or to characterize them in terms of number of spatial and number of temporal or to require that they be in total compactified or higher dimensional!!!
Give me that extra time dimension then, Alamo-Girl! It seems clear to me that a more elaborated concept of time, a much better theory needs to be found in order to explain such things as duality, non-locality, and superposition, which have been observed under laboratory conditions. Even under laboratory conditions, these phenomena would seem to require superluminal velocities in order to occur. I gather the speed of light is posited as a universal constant/constraint in relativity theory, such that were two entangled particles from opposite ends of the universe to get together for a spontaneous love fest, and this happens instantly, spontaneously, we cant explain under either Newtonian or Einsteinian theory how that could have happened.
In such scenario, travel time would be nil; time would seem to be a null factor with respect to such effects if we understand time as measurable in terms of particular configurations of velocity and mass, moving from point A to point B through a topography featuring other massive (more or less) objects capable of exerting gravity effects on passing bodies. And thereby causing the space through which the primary space-time body is moving to curve. Which would seem to suggest that a more massive body can affect the mass and velocity of passing objects moving relative to it.
Im with you, Alamo-Girl: Geometry is the very language we need to describe such relations. Geometry seems to propose most useful language for describing the features of the reality that man and nature seem to be commonly, collectively subject to.
I figure that the various geometries as originally conceived and described were personal visions from Euclid and his ancestors in Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Plato, et al., to the present day. That is, a novel geometry elaborated represents the singular vision of the particular geometer who articulated it. And in an honest culture, such products of mind and spirit are not any kind of fly by night routine.
Just to give an example: Reimann conceived a particular geometry that flew in the face of Euclidean orthodoxy. Apparently, this was a gift received via imagination and experience. Yet far from being a merely subjective belief, it appears that Reimanns geometry referred to real things far beyond Reimanns subjectivity. For when Einstein needed a conceptual base for his speculations into relativity theory, he picked Reimanns geometry right off of the shelf: For it furnished the best description of what Einstein in his deepest, most intense mediations and reflections encountered as already out there in reality. Thus I imagine the geometer as a type may be more artist than scientist. And so given their invaluable achievements, both Reimann and Einstein were great artists as well as great scientists/mathematicians.
Alamo-Girl, you and Thermopylae have broached a number of issues today that I want to think about some more before I reply. When I come back, maybe the problem would be: What must have been loaded into the Singularity of pre-Space/Time-Zero, such that a living universe of the particular configuration we now observe (in all its harmonious branches) could possibly become the way that it is, and continue to maintain in that way?
This to me is the single most fascinating question that can be asked.
The string theorists are trying to work this problem from the inside out. Do you suppose there is any way this same problem could be worked from the outside in?
That is from the Whole to the Part, instead of the other way around?
Just wondering, asking. But then I must be famous for my dumb questions by now. Oh, well
. Good night to dear A-G and T! God bless you and all of yours
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