Re: Could the 'missing dimensions' be quarks?

Posted by rtharbaugh on September 16, 2003 at 15:09:17:

In Reply to: Could the 'missing dimensions' be quarks? posted by rickww on September 10, 2003 at 20:54:36:

Rickww and all

I have just been reading "Kepler's Conjecture" and found that mathematicians solve higher dimensional problems by using objects as dimensions, which seems on the face of it to support the idea that the quarks could be thought of as objectifying the missing dimensions.

On page 173 of Kepler's Conjecture by George G. Szpiro, in an argument describing how the mathematician Thomas C. Hales proved Kepler's Conjecture (that 12 spheres surrounding one sphere is the densest possible packing in 3d space), the following quote:

"The author Simon Singh described Hale's approach succinctly as follows: Plot the density of all 50-ball arrangements on a 150-dimensional graph. Such a graph resembles a 150-dimensional landscape."

You see that the analysis of 50 balls in 3d space requires 150 (3x50) position variables, three for each ball. Singh says, if I understand correctly, that the 150 variables result in a 150 dimensional graph. I admit I do not understand how mathematicians do problems in higher dimensions (I have a basic notion, but not enough to follow the math arguments), but this seems to give a pretty clear picture.

My own poor attempts to visualize four and five dimensions by constructing stacks of balls in 3d seem to coincide with some of the discussion in Szpiro, which I find encouraging. But I have noted that it takes two balls to make a line, which is one dimensional, and three balls to make a plane, which is two dimensional, and four balls to make a tetrahedron, which is three dimensional, and so I would imagine that this series continues indefinately, which would mean that it takes n+1 balls to make n dimensional objects. 50 balls should make 49 dimensional objects under this conjecture, but as a rough approximation, 49 is pretty close to 50. Maybe Singh just ignores the n+1 factor as negligible.

Anyway, then the three quarks in a proton would need nine dimensional graphing for complete description, per Singh, but in my analyis three objects result in two dimensions, so a three dimensional view of the two dimensions results in a six dimensional interpretation, hence the six missing dimensions could be explained, as Rickww suggests, by the three quarks.

This is a rough proposal, and needs more thought, but I just thought I'd throw it in here and see if anyone has any sparks.

Thanks,

Richard

(Report this post to the moderator)

Follow Ups: (Reload page to see most recent)

• Re: Could the 'missing dimensions' be quarks? -- DickT 9/16/03 (1)
  • Re: Could the 'missing dimensions' be quarks? -- rtharbaugh 9/16/03 (0)

Post a Followup

Name    :     (Save your login cookie)
Password  :     (Delete your login cookie)
Subject : 

Comments:

(The following are optional.)
Link URL   : 
Link Title : 
Image URL  :