So I was going to post this to Facebook directly – and found that it was too long – and then I remembered – wait – I have half a dozen blogs – surely one of them could serve as the platfrom for a post – so Webservations it is >>>
When I was much (much) younger and actually understood the Maths I was studying, I read a wonderful little book called Flatland by Edwin Abbott. At one level it was a commentary on social hierarchy and at another an examination of the resistance of humans to recognizing – much less understanding – the concept of multiple dimensions. The book was written in 1884 BTW.
Just been watching a wonderful Ted Talk on ‘E8′ (or as it is affectionately known – Garrett Lisi’s Theory of Everything ) two years after it was recorded.
In the past 125 years, we seem to have developed a little – and now routinely talk of (that is different to understand) multi-dimensional space. In Garrett’s case (he is focussed on a theoretical model with 8 dimensions, dubbed E8 – that he ‘hopes’ IS the unified field theory we have been searching for around a century now (maybe longer) – I use hope loosley – he seems to be working with something more than hope
At the end of the talk, Garrett was asked to explain E8 a little further by the host and when he did, I couldn’t help but think of Edwin’s book as he talked of how different aspects of the 8 dimensions spin in and out of focus as the model spins around.
OK – this is hard to explain – happy to report that I am truly excited to be listening to Garrett talk first hand – very soon. YOWZA. More on that later.
(BTW fellow followers – Garrett is a Maui Resident – we truly have an eclectic, stunning, and extraordinary collection of residents on this island of ours.)



