· Google ·
Posted on 04/14/2009 10:05:38 AM PDT by neverdem
Perfect liquids suggest theory’s math mirrors something real
Shadows live in a simple world. They glide effortlessly across any sort of surface, oblivious to the higher dimension of space in which 3-D bodies move, collide and sometimes block the paths of rays of light.
Shadows have no idea how important that third dimension is, and how objects in it endow those very shadows with their quasi-physical existence. Indeed, the laws of shadow physics all depend on the third dimension’s presence. And just as the clueless inhabitants of the shadow world require an extra dimension to explain how they exist and interact, reality for humans may also depend on an invisible dimension or dimensions unknown.
Physicists, in fact, have long pondered possible higher dimensions beyond the familiar four — three of space and one of time — that describe ordinary experience. Such extra dimensions have emerged as essential features in a sophisticated mathematical pastime known as superstring theory. Believed by some theorists to be the ultimate building blocks of all physical reality, superstrings are supposedly inaccessible to experimental study. If they exist, they would be far too small to detect directly —enlarging a superstring to the size of an amoeba would be the equivalent of making an ant as big as the visible universe. Similarly, the extra dimensions that strings require would probably be far too small to detect by available methods.
So string theory has long remained in the physics version of The Twilight Zone, disconnected from the ordinary world of sight and sound. But now the extra-dimensional math has begun to audition for Reality TV. For the first time, superstring theorists can point to a place where their formulas help other physicists understand something they can see in their experiments.
One such experiment generates matter in its most fiery...
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
Check the right sidebar for more links. Entropy is a concept from thermodynamics and wasted energy that can never be used, and viscosity is a concept from fluid dynamics and fluid resistance to flow. Could they be different sides of the same coin?
(Drum Roll please)
NOBEL PRIZE TIME FOR A BUNCH OF GUYS!
bump
I almost never plug my book, but it has a passage very similar to this in Chapter 4. It compares the shadows on the bottom of a pool to our situation in 4D. Those shadows are 2D but rely on 3D. We are in 4D but rely on 5D. Those interested, please have a look. See my profile page. Thanks.
How can someone write an article about “Perfect Liquids” and never mention red wine?
One speck of blood or tissue may be enough to diagnose cancer
Recalibrating the Biological Clock?
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Gee, first they win Grammys, and now a Nobel ??? (evil grin)
Seriously cool, tho. . .
· Google ·
Thx for the ping.
My pleasure. In case I forgot, thanks go to neverdem for pinging me in here.
‘So interesting that superstring or M-theory explains so much, yet remains so elusive to direct testing.
‘Sort of similar to biology re the Miller Experiment: so close to finding the very origin of life, yet that origin remaining so elusive as to seem infinite.
Cool - they are using a dual string transform like EE’s use LaPlace transforms!
I keep telling everyone that the Special Theory of Relativity doesn’t mean that you can’t do it - it means that you can’t come back!
“Such arguments leave an impression of utter unfamiliarity with the history of science. In times past, the same kinds of aspersions were cast against quarks, neutrinos, even the very existence of atoms. “
Same argument was used against the numeri ficti (negative intagers), back in the day.
I guess all your warnings have slipped off into the future. ;’)
LOL.
so I’ve heard. thx
Sorry if I was preaching the obvious.
;)
No.
There are lots of levels of understanding . . . sometimes within the same FREEPER.
LOL.
N>4 ==> N>6
Five is not possible, if you understand.
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