Klintus Fang
First Post
Regarding the number of dimensions in the universe: in physics canon there are only 4. 3 space. one time.
String theorists talk of additional dimensions. But that's wild speculation at this point and there are just as many physicists who will tell you its hogwash as there are physicists who actually believe it might be true. Until string theory can make a prediction that can be empirically measured which can't be explained by any other theory then there's no way to know if it's physics or just random mathematical speculation.
Last I checked, which was a few years ago, every string theorist had a different speculation as to how many other dimensions there might be, and no string theorists was actually able to come up with a way of selecting the proper solutions from the complicated equations that arise in string theory and thus none were able to make any empirical predictions.
In other words, string theory is in its infancy. Until it breaks out of that infancy, any one who speculates about dimensions higher than the basic four is either speculating wildly or quoting somebody who is speculating wildly.
Regarding hyperspace: I agree that that is probably what Lovecraft was alluding to. I just wish he'd kept the phrase "non-euclidean" out of it. Mathematicians of his time could have told him he was using that term incorrectly. **sigh**
As a further aside: if one really want to explore the limits of what is knowable and what is not knowable, one should study modern set theory, where the limits of logic are explored ad nauseum.
It's harder to get this into the popular mind set cause its so abstract, but Godel effectively proved early in this century that for any formal language that has a finite set of axioms, you will be able to formulate meaningful question using the formal language which your axioms will be incabable of answering ( I paraphrase at the risk of possibily mis-stating the exact result....).
In other words: mathematics/logic has no end. There will always be unanswered questions.
Now that's interesting!
String theorists talk of additional dimensions. But that's wild speculation at this point and there are just as many physicists who will tell you its hogwash as there are physicists who actually believe it might be true. Until string theory can make a prediction that can be empirically measured which can't be explained by any other theory then there's no way to know if it's physics or just random mathematical speculation.
Last I checked, which was a few years ago, every string theorist had a different speculation as to how many other dimensions there might be, and no string theorists was actually able to come up with a way of selecting the proper solutions from the complicated equations that arise in string theory and thus none were able to make any empirical predictions.
In other words, string theory is in its infancy. Until it breaks out of that infancy, any one who speculates about dimensions higher than the basic four is either speculating wildly or quoting somebody who is speculating wildly.
Regarding hyperspace: I agree that that is probably what Lovecraft was alluding to. I just wish he'd kept the phrase "non-euclidean" out of it. Mathematicians of his time could have told him he was using that term incorrectly. **sigh**
As a further aside: if one really want to explore the limits of what is knowable and what is not knowable, one should study modern set theory, where the limits of logic are explored ad nauseum.
It's harder to get this into the popular mind set cause its so abstract, but Godel effectively proved early in this century that for any formal language that has a finite set of axioms, you will be able to formulate meaningful question using the formal language which your axioms will be incabable of answering ( I paraphrase at the risk of possibily mis-stating the exact result....).
In other words: mathematics/logic has no end. There will always be unanswered questions.
Now that's interesting!