Slashdot Mirror
Six-Dimensional Space-Time Theory
eldavojohn writes "PhysOrg is covering an interesting year-old paper that proposes an alternative six-dimensional theory of space and time. George Sparling's proposition, based on Einstein's general relativity and Elie Cartan's triality, is a twistor space (which I've only read of in Roger Penrose's latest work). The gist is that space-time is modeled not by four dimensions but by six, and that the extra two dimensions are time-like. Sparling is hoping that tests from the Large Hadron Collider will help prove his theory. The paper is heavy but the PhysOrg article summarizes it nicely."
Time is four-dimensional, so there are 7 dimensions! So sayeth the TimeCube!
Now there are three ways we can have dupes.
Great, not only do we have to figure out how to travel through time, but now we also have to figure out how to travel through uime and vime!
An interesting claim made in the paper, but not mentioned in the PhysOrg writeup, is that this theory provides a co-ordinate free definition of chaos in spacetime. That is, for usual definitions of a dynamical system being chaotic, there is a preferred time co-ordinate describing the evolution of the system. General relativity, on the other hand, is remarkable because there is no single preferred co-ordinate system; everything works independently of the particular choice of co-ordinates to work in. As far as I can glean from the paper (it is very very dense) they simply define a chaotic system with regard to properties of the Chi operator, and claim that this conforms to the more restricted usual definition. This is far from clear to me -- I'm struggling just to get my head around their definition of Chi, let alone any implications of it -- but it would certainly be very interesting if true.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
I thought that my judicious use of the non-existent words "uime" and "vime" would be the first clue that I wasn't very serious.
Of course mathematical models sometimes help us frame ideas about physical reality that we have trouble otherwise perceiving. Lorentz and Poincare developed much of the mathematics of special relativity as a mathematical model of electrodynamics using an "apparent time" that they viewed as an artificial mathematical construct necessary to make the model work. Einstein provided the insight that this "artificial" time was actually a real effect by making a conceptual shift about what simultaneity means, and special relativity was born.
For now the extra time-like dimensions are simply artificial creations of a mathematical model, we still await an insight to explain how they fit in with our own pereceptions of the universe.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
As usual, Rod predicted this:
"There is a sixth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area that might be called the Twilight Zone."
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I've been rather fascinated with Peter Carroll's hypothesis of 6-dimensional space-time for a while now. He has a few dozen articles up at specularium.org
n t&task=view&id=26&Itemid=55&Itemid=1 ):
iirc he suggests that 3-dimensional space is curved in one of the extra time dimensions to form a finite, boundless 4-dimensional hypersphere, and 1-dimensional time is curved in the other extra time dimension to form a finite, boundless 2-dimensional circle.
He makes some falsifiable predictions based on his theory (from http://specularium.org/index.php?option=com_conte
9. Predictions from the Hyperwarp 6D model
a) No more generations of particles can exist. (Subject only to falsification)
b) No Higgs particle exists. (Subject only to falsification)
c) As it seems that no known natural process except, perhaps, neutron star or black hole collisions could cause a sufficiently large quantity of matter to undergo a sufficient acceleration to produce graviton bosons in detectable quantities, we shall never easily detect gravity waves (subject only to falsification).
d) The principle of t-axis neutrality does permit the existence of a number of exotic bosons corresponding to configurations such as :
d-quark/positron, or d-antiquark/electron or any type of quark/antineutrino or antiquark/neutrino
Within Hyperwarp 6D theory a "leptoquark boson" does not really represent a fifth force of nature, anymore than weak (W-, W+, or Zo) bosons represent anything other than a special case of electromagnetism. See Leptoquarks and Neutron Stars paper.
e) Spacetime singularities larger than fundamental particles do not exist. The quantisation of particle properties in terms of spacetime curvature implies a quantisation of spacetime itself and the top quark represents the maximum possible curvature at any point.
f) Neutrinos can annihilate against neutrinos in head on collisions. Antineutrinos can likewise annihilate against antineutrinos. Such collisions could create photon pairs or pairs of neutrinos of other generations. This controversial proposition lies open to experimental confirmation. It may also contribute a solution to the solar neutrino problem.
That's an easy one:
- spectacular (unlike subatomic particles physics ones which are observed only indirectly, over sensor arrays and computer imagery), high energy experiments, plus
- his own tendency to perform publicity stunts and make bombastic, yet sherlock-holmes-esque mysterious announcements (because... Tesla was independent, not academic researcher and was always on a hunt for venture capital) about his future work, plus,
- on top of it all his failure to accomplish something he announced, which could had been very revolutionary in every sense (perhaps most notable being social sense) of that word, apparently not because it was physically impossible, but because he was pulled back by "The Man", gave him an aureole of saint-like hero in eyes of a common man (as well as kooks).
There are numerous examples that oral traditions attach mythical supernatural (or at least greater than actual) powers to beloved heroes in collective folk memory. Tesla is one of most recent of such characters and perhaps first that transcended national and ethnic barriers (after all, in his own mind his public was global). Other notable popular hero figures are, of course, Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Bruce Lee, Mother Theresa,
Actually Tesla created the equivalent of a waterwheel that tapped the energy of Earth's motion through the coelestial aether. However, the resulting drag force was larger than he'd predicted, and after his experiments introduced a full extra day in 1892 (February 31, 1892 - google it), he was forced to stop his experiments. The original wheel is still on display in his home town of Smiljan. On special occasions, it is started up and let spin freely, without an load attached.
Also, Tesla had to use the energy he'd stored up from the wheel (in a huge bank of capacitors - creating this was such a feat that the unit for capacitance is now named in his honour) to actually drive the wheel and restore the Earth's proper rotational period. Of course, the transfer wasn't without loss, which is why years divisible by 100 do not have leap days any longer.