Roman numerals are seldom used in quantum physics, a notable exception being when one is performing polynomial division by hand on a slate.
Hey, Rich,
Yeah, I’ve seen it. Bookmarked it Haven’t read it yet, but I hope to
get to it today.I just hope I don’t have to rewrite all my novels at the end of it.
P.
This sounds like a joke that’s way over my head? Math brains have their own inside jokes, I suppose.
I think it’s a joke that is way under all of our heads. :(
Is that why math isn’t done on clay anymore; cuneiform is too cumbersome to write? ^^.
Octonions look at first glance a lot like a stack of two 4d vectors and seem to obey the same rules (right hand rule, ect). But i’ve never heard of them until now!
III^^I^III ^I^^II
Multiplying complex numbers does rotations in 2-d plane; multiplying quaternions do rotations in 3d (often get used in 3d graphics and CAD/CAM type stuff); multiplying octonions does rotations in 4d. One interesting thing is there are no 16-nions for 5d; there is nothing after octonions. This might explain why spacetime is 4d. That’s about as far as I ever thought about octonions before reading this.
This seems to very early days in terms of her using octonions as a physical theory. Seems like she is in the “this is why they might be applicable” stage, which is a lot of work from where, say, string theory is today, where you can say “this is the mathematical model that gives us tools to get beyond current physics.” (Not that string theory has really paid off, since super-symmetry is looking like a bust.)
The article does mention she’s successfully modeled the first level of particles using octonions. Also that some of the math lines up with string theory. And there’s a string of physicists going back years who have had ideas along the same lines.
Promising at least!
My wife and I spent yesterday evening calculating the smallest Octonion yet discovered:
0.0000001
Seven insides (of the zeros) and one outside.
For some reason, this is all I have:
To His Coy Mistress
Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust;
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
ANDREW MARVELL
Lines have two sides.
I have revolutionized physics.
Somewhat relatedly: