jacc in the box - extra stuff -back-Science from the Soap Box
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dimensionsHere is where I risk sticking my dick in a door jam, but before I do...
I love geometry, I really do! I think it's boss that we can have a science that is both factual and truthful yet lies beyond the reach of all physical reality. Nope, you heard right, I am flat-out stating that there is nothing in geometry, save for behaviors (i.e. motion and particle mechanics) that is actually represented in nature or the physical (corporeal) world.
I know what you're thinking, like 'get that guy a sedative with a chaser of electro-shock' but if ya'll would take the fricken' blinders off for just a sec you may actually understand the point I am gonna make here. Instead of beating around the bush let's jump right in!
Geometry is simply a science of perspective. All of the things you can possibly point to and say, 'see, there's a sphere or a cube or a pyramid' are in actuality abstract representations of those concepts. What you are pointing at are structures that are configured in the shape of a sphere or cube or pyramid or tetrahedron or whatever. They are structures of smaller components that are configured in geometrical shapes that we observers tend to forget are composed of even smaller components.
You may think you have a perfectly cut princess diamond in hand but when you zoom down onto the face of that diamond, at the nano level, you'll see that the surface is more like the beaded skin of a stingray instead of the perfectly smooth glass-like surface we normally see it as. At that level there are dimples-dimples everywhere! Actually, there are gorges and ridges and textures oh my!
One-gram of water floating in space (i.e. orbital free-fall) is pretty much the most perfect sphere in nature but, when you really think about it, it's still a construct of cohesive molecules. The atoms that the molecules are comprised of are in themselves, geometrically speaking, pulsating oblate spheroids—but the fact is an electron cloud is providing you the illusion of that spheroid. There is no spherical object there.
Follow? It's the behavior of the busy-little water molecules that cause the blob of water to contract into a spherical construct up at the macro level. As for that diamond we were talking about earlier its surface, you could say, has been leggoized into a sprawling veldt of periodic table 14 bumpiness.
Got that? Okay, now let's get to that dick vs. door jam discussion!
Dimensions are founded on geometry. That said, I should be able to close out this article and motor on with my day. This is the end of my argument, sort'a speak, but for the sake of those who didn't quite get it let's build on that statement... Oh, that's right! I did forget to flesh out the above 'dimensions are founded on geometry' with the clearly obvious conclusion that—they don't exist. Now, let's keep going!
A cube, a very common and popular shape have you, is the definitive geometrical representation of the first three dimensions. Dimensions start with a length then a width and depth (or height depending on your perspective) but you have to ask yourself where's the point in all this? Why is it that a point does not constitute as a dimension? Save for a grid coordinate a point will contribute nothing else to your geometrical perspective because it is nothing. Geometrically speaking, such a spacial (no)thing is normally referred to as a singularity...
A singularity, by its own definition, is the quintessential description of zero. A singularity is a point in space that is forever crushed into itself, from all directions, and is therefore a non-dimension. The singularity is the ultimate mathematical and physical definition of nothingness.
Okay, to put a singularity in perspective take eight geometrical cubes and stack them two high, two wide and two deep. In the world of math, since this is a geometrical exercise here, these eight cubes will touch exactly—with absolutely no gaps whatsoever between them—making the central point of contact a big-fat whopping zero-point of singularity nothingness.
From these eight geometrical cubes you get three planes intersecting the point of singularity where with actual physical cubes this would not be possible. With the imaginary geometrical cubes they would have to touch exactly for the three planes to demarcate the singularity where in our physical reality electro-magnetism prevents cohesive objects from really touching each other in fact.
Now, let's build up to the three planes intersecting that singularity...
The first dimensional construct beyond a singularity is a line, a length, and that is best visualized as an axial projected from a singularity. By logical observation such an axis is also forever crushed into itself from all possible directions, and from all infinite singularities along its length, and is as substantive as a singularity and is therefore nothingness by that same definition.
If your length is a micron or a thousand light years it will always hold true that infinite nothingness is still equal to the nothingness of a singularity.
By that same argument a plane, a length plus width, being the second dimensional construct, is in itself as much a singularity by volume as is the axial it spans out from. It is also crushed from all directions and is as much nothingness as a singularity.
The three planes from our stacked eight-cube structure, no matter how expansive or infinite, take up exactly the same amount of space as the lone singularity where all three planes intersect.
It is depth, representing the third geometrical dimension, that is logically the only observable (i.e. realistic) dimension and is best defined here as space. Space, that is, the vacua bubble that makes up our universe. Then again, as the voice of reason, volume itself doesn't make it "real" per se but that's an argument for another day.
Like forth dimensional space-time both the first and second dimensions do not exist except as mathematical constructs.
While dabbling in String Theory for the book I read about some very odd, yet comical conclusions based upon the application of dimensions in the equations. That's not to say that these ideas (e.g. parallel universes) are "pants on head stupid" by any means, it's just that when you take a step back and picture dimensions as no longer part of the equations—the true simplicity of String Theory, conceptually speaking, becomes evident.
String Theory is elegant, yes, but messy all in the same breath. And as counter intuitive as the ideas are in these theories the same can be said for dimensions as mathematical constructs. Like time, which we have addressed, dimensions, as we currently perceive them, may very well not exist at all; or, in the alternative, substantive dimensions may come in threes?
Let someone else give it a go on a chalk board...not me!
Keep in mind, as a heads up, if there are no dimensions then that kinda takes all the wind out of the sails of M-theory, supergravity and a whole galaxy of ideas and throws them into the metaphorical shitter. To no surprise I, for one, am okay with that.
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Hum, I think we're missing something here, like...a proof that dimensions actually exist and are not just an imaginary mechanism for perspective? How about someone taking a stab at this and prove them as a physically substantive realities instead of geometrical facts and truths!
Fold and spindle them to your heart's content—just keep in mind what William Everett Preston said, "Nothing from nothing leaves nothing."
Do that and I'll STFU...
nicholas ralph baum
October 23, 2009
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