George Bernhard Riemann developed the math that Einstein used on his way to E=MC^2. It was he who first demonstrated the possibility of extra dimensions in our Universe one hundred years before Einstein. And through him even I with my limited abilities can follow his math from Pythagoras to metric tensors. Real slow but step-by-step. So now I can see the meaning of 'forces unify in higher dimensions'. Now that I see how simple it is I can't understand why it wasn't obvious before this. I guess I needed some internal rewiring. Like many great mathematicians of his age he died prematurely of consumption which resulted from malnutrition during his childhood.
However, my challenge to myself remains: Is space quantized? Riemann may have proved that there is a metric tensor at each point in space but what is a point in space? A metric tensor? Just a number representing all the forces in each dimension. Pythagoras to me.
Or not.
George Bernhard Riemann is proof that we're all on this flight together.
Dick
Thursday, August 5, 2010
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