Happy Birthday Euler

[d000hg]

I'm fairly sure early cultures didn't just have 1,2, many. How would you know a fair dowry for your daughter, or how many cabbages a chicken was worth?

[NotAllThere]

...Well, scientist agree that there are more then 3, some go all the way to 11. Mathematics can however describe umpteen million dimensions. It is an abstraction. ...

Physicists often use many more dimensions than this - e.g. when considering phase space.Hilbert spaces are (countably) infinite dimensional, and they're used in physics as well.

[istvan]

Physicists often use many more dimensions than this - e.g. when considering phase space.Hilbert spaces are (countably) infinite dimensional, and they're used in physics as well.

It is still a model, albeit helpful in science, engineering, etc. We do not know how many dimensions are in real world. Think of it, I am starting to be puzzled, what is real world...

[NotAllThere]

There is no real world. It's all an AndyW illusion.

[d000hg]

Physicists don't agree there are more than 3 physical dimensions. They (mostly) agree that the maths to explain observed behaviour seem to require extra dimensions. They are concerned with what makes things add up, not what actually IS (and many say the latter isn't really important).

[istvan]

Physicists don't agree there are more than 3 physical dimensions. They (mostly) agree that the maths to explain observed behaviour seem to require extra dimensions. They are concerned with what makes things add up, not what actually IS (and many say the latter isn't really important).

A decade or more and we will live mostly in a virtual reality, holodeck etc...

[NotAllThere]

Physicists don't agree there are more than 3 physical dimensions. They (mostly) agree that the maths to explain observed behaviour seem to require extra dimensions. They are concerned with what makes things add up, not what actually IS (and many say the latter isn't really important).

There is a school of thought among physicists that the equations are the reality.

[OwlHoot]

There is a school of thought among physicists that the equations are the reality.

Many physicists have a formalism fetish. But that's taking it to ridiculous extremes.

In principle, equations are only a codified and abbreviated form of prose or conversation.