A few thoughts on the nature of Nature.

The 21st Ig Nobel ceremony was recently held. The awards are run by the science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research. They are supposed to "first make people laugh, and then make them think". First prize went to Alessandro Pluchino (Italy) and colleagues for demonstrating mathematically that organisations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random. I knew that all along.

The conjecture that there are extra dimensions curled up around each point of space is pretty well accepted in the scientific community. The commonly accepted form is of nine spatial dimensions and one dimension of time. It is assumed that six of the dimensions are rolled up too small for us to see or touch anything. Our environment seems to be three spatial dimensions and one of time.

We are all familiar with that dimension of time. The time of science and poetry. We feel it every instant of every day and intuit that it is the only dimension of time. However, we all know that within quantum mechanical restraints that time is constant. It flows unceasingly as a stream does to the ocean. But at the same time as there are eddies in a river, we all recognize that time seems to move at different rates under different circumstances. The flight of time when touching a lover or a hot stove for instance.
But suppose that there are two dimensions, one of time and five curled up spatial dimensions. What might the world be like with two dimensions of time?
A few thoughts on that tomorrow.
Dual temporal dimensions would be proof that we’re all on this flight together.

Dick