On Halloween I had a discussion about ghost stories etc (as you do) when someone mentioned a story about demons a friend of a friend who’s a theoretical physics specialist said that “possibly a door opened between dimensions” according to him other dimensions really exist but you can’t really conceptualise them but occasionally you get a glimpse via advanced mathematics and its “scary”.
He kind of creeped me out, what was he talking about?!?
It would also help, Midwinter, if you would break up your question into several grammatically correct sentences. It’s nearly impossible to understand what you’re saying when you write in one long jammed-together sentence. In any case, I think you should go back to your friend-of-a-friend, the physicist, and ask him what he’s talking about. We could make all sorts of guesses as to what he’s talking about, but they would only be guesses. It’s his job to explain what he means, not ours to make some sort of meaning out of your report of what he said.
Your friend has most likely gone over from the realm of theoretical physics to the realm of pure, uneducated speculation. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
Sounds like the Neanderthal Parallax stories to me (And likely many other SF stories I don’t know about). In that triology, a door was opened to a parallel universe, and although there were no demons involved, there were Neanderthals, who had become the dominant hominid species in that universe.
The door was caused by a quantum-computing experiment gone wrong. It was based on the idea that quantum events occur across time and so the computer reached out to other “simultaneous” universes where it also existed while trying to factor a number that should have been prime. The number was too large, however, and a flaw in the computer led to it accessing a universe (ours) in which it did NOT exist, but in doing so it managed to transfer a Neanderthal over.
I do not know the math enough to know how much of this concept is theoretically possible and how much of it came from the author’s mind, but I do know that math allows for many more dimensions (and universes, I guess) than we know of here.
Sounds to me like your f-o-f was just telling ghost stories with just enough facts in them to make you really wonder about it…
And doesn’t saying “other dimensions” imply that we’re going to be attacted by tesseractal demons? I think “universes” might be more appropriate, but I’m not sure.
BTW, NoClueBoy, if you’re trying to summon mathematicians, is it enough to say their names? Shouldn’t you paint some pentagra* or sacrifice a virgin or something?
I’m joking. I know there’s absolutely no way it’s not ‘pentagrams’
Dimensions are merely measurements…true, the most common are length, width, depth, time, but you could also use frequency, amplitude, temperature, RPM, or any other variable you can think of.
Should the idea of sight be frightening to a blind person?
Get excited by ideas that stretch your imagination!
String theory, also known as The Theory of Everything suggests that there are eleven demensions. But the development of this theory is in its early stages. Maybe it will pan out. Maybe it won’t. But it’s interesting!
I am not a scientist or a mathematician, but I get a natural high from listening to possibilities. PBS has a series showing now called The Eloquent Universe. I don’t know how many hours it will run, but two of the programs have already been on. It talks about String Theory in terms that are appropriate for a layperson. I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but I think it is fascinating.
And, of course, the series in available on tape and DVD.
BTW, my original question was prompted because I do not have much depth perception. It doesn’t scare me a bit to contemplate what I am missing.