Unity
posted by November 15 at 12:38 PM
onLadies and gentleman, this may be the shape of your universe:
Lisi’s inspiration lies in the most elegant and intricate shape known to mathematics, called E8 - a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points first found in 1887, but only fully understood by mathematicians this year after workings, that, if written out in tiny print, would cover an area the size of Manhattan.
E8 encapsulates the symmetries of a geometric object that is 57-dimensional and is itself is 248-dimensional. Lisi says “I think our universe is this beautiful shape.”
What makes E8 so exciting is that Nature also seems to have embedded it at the heart of many bits of physics. One interpretation of why we have such a quirky list of fundamental particles is because they all result from different facets of the strange symmetries of E8.
Lisi’s breakthrough came when he noticed that some of the equations describing E8’s structure matched his own. “My brain exploded with the implications and the beauty of the thing,” he tells New Scientist. “I thought: ‘Holy crap, that’s it!’”
UPDATE: To get in the mood, let’s listen to Linda Perhacs’s psychedelic celebration of geometry, “Parallelograms,” from her album by the same name.
Comments
Our universe was designed on a Spiralgraph??!! WTF???
More importantly, the dude who came up with idea is more of a surf bum than Spicoli!
Trying to explain complicated math to the lay person is awfully hard. Here they show us a 2 dimensional picture and tell us that it is "a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern" and that it "encapsulates the symmetries of a geometric object that is 57-dimensional and is itself is 248-dimensional."
Er... um... okay. I guess I'll take your word for it. (Even if I'm not exactly sure what all those words mean.)
Nah, my universe is more like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set
or this:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/heartmusic
@3:
The Wikipedia entry on the E8 system has a photograph of a 3D plastic model. I just liked the mandala representation because, well, obviously.
But, I would imagine even a lowly three-dimensional representation can't come close to doing justice to the complexity of E8.
Still, it's beautiful, regardless of the number of dimensions in which it's represented.
Nick@5: yeah, I like the pretty pictures too. I was just commenting on the fact that we all have no idea what we're talking about here. It's not like the photo of the 3D plastic model helps us to understand any better. (a 2D picture of a 3D model of something which is both 8 and 248 dimensional and which "encapsulates the symmetries of a geometric object that is 57-dimensional". Um... huh?)
For those of us confused by multi-dimensional ideas I would recomend watching "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan. There is one episode where he describes dimensions beyond just the three we can see.
@8
That was a great episode! I think it was about a two dimensional creature getting swept up in a three dimensional world.
I can almost hear "Popcorn" now.
@9, it is kinda cheesy but makes the point. I liked when he cut the apple in half and dipped it in ink to show what a 2 dimensional world would see of a 3 dimensional object.
There is no such thing as a universe.
Ok, who took my pens?
If his theory is correct, then the proper way to visualize E8 is to look out the window.
Ummm... WHAT??
http://homepages.wmich.edu/~drichter/images/splashphoto_small_073106.jpg
3D vs. 2D model of E8 illustrated perfectly.
That picture of the universe looks like the cover of Hissing Fauna: Are You the Destroyer?
@15 that photo works very well. Thanks.
The weirdest part is that at the beginning of the story they say that the theory requires only 3 spatial and one time dimension, and then goes on to discuss the elaborately-dimensioned E8 without any attempt to reconcile the two.
Recommended reading: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland
That's fine if yer just gonna crib stuff from Mefi. But PLEASE don't link to the guy-with-tree-hands thing. I hope I live long enough to forget ever seeing that. Don't say you weren't warned.
E8 in motion:
http://deferentialgeometry.org/anim/e8rotation.mov
Oh. now that was cool.
@ 19
Ooooo. Thank you.
@19
Now THAT makes math interesting. Cool link.
@15 & @19:
Thanks, those were great.
THE UNIVERSE ROCKS.
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