Monday, September 15, 2008

Brain and Dimensions.

Human brain has not evolved to visualise,understand or grasp things like extra dimensions and for good reason... we dont encounter extra dimensions in our struggle for survival.

Well these are my ideas on visualising extra dimensions and this may be as far as possible from real physics that we understand today.... so if you dont agree, feel free not to comment and close this tab in your browser window (And if u use the silly IE the close the window all together!!!).

When a cube of clay is pressed into a wall, it will flatten out into a paper thin plate. This happens because 1 dimension is being deleted from the system. The particles constituting the clay cube travel along the 2 available axes and we get a 2D object. Now imagine a system of infinite axes.... for doing this just make instead of 2 axes infinite axes of any shape in any direction.... so the axes can be curved,have vertices or can be srtaight, curved, have sharp bends and peaks all in the same time!!! (Pun intended :-) for those who didnt understand the pun, time is the 4th diemsion!!) Now we take our clay cube and press it into this system of infinite dimensions... as happened before, this time also we see that particles of our clay cube travel in the directions of different axes and in the end we get an nD object which may look like a crumpled ball of paper.... or something else depending on the axes...

If these dimensions are present then their effect can be seen only from the nano level down cause its the particles constituting the system that use these axes. Maybe brownian motion is nothing but movement of atoms and molecules in these axes. Thus for absolute entropy all we need is a system with infinite dimensions.

These dimensions are all pervading and omniscent and so the proteins in my blodd move in brownian motion whether or not i am in motion. However at macro level my body is moving in the 3D space that i am familiar with but all my particles are moving in all the dimension with its many axes.

The brain only analyses the motion of the macro system of praticles which is restricted to 3D only, though the particles may be moving along multiple axes... and therefore our inability to comprehend multiple dimensions.

Who knows may be the best equiped organism to understand such dimensions can be microorganisms. For a tiger to catch a deer, understanding of 3D space is enough, but for an E.coli to catch its glucose molecule, which is under brownian motion, it needs to understand those axes... to trap the molecules it needs to atleast come in the way of a glucose molecule moving along a particular axis if not bend the axis, who knows ???? IT is not yet known why a bacteria moves in a particular direction if motile, but a lot of things in that microbe is not at random and a lot many things are definitely directed, so who knows!!! what the mighty humams fail to understand might be grasped to the hilt by measly microbes!!!

6 comments:

Nikhil said...

Interesting, very interesting...try writing a study or something and send it abroad. You know Einstein was more interested in imagination, not physics that is accepted as reality!

kamlesh said...

Dude i find ur idea of multi dimension quite interesting!!
But there are certain things i wud like to know.U said that when we imagine of a cube with bending n twisted axes we wud get a multi dimensional object...But there are so many objects in this world which we can see are not regualr but like crumpled ball of paper..See according to me dimensions are something many of us are relative..See when there is a line drawn on paper then suppose we make an ant move along the line...Now the ant can also cross the line from one end to other...LIke ppl cross borders frm one country to der( not literally)
So fr an ant its only crossing possible that too in the plane of paper..Now if we have only one pillar supporting a roof..now the same ant can move in two different directions...THis is 2D...Now consider a bird it can fly in all three dimensions...I mean all three mutually perpendicular directions...SO this is 3D...Now that suppose if the bird flies in XY plane at some angle (W) in space...angle subtended in space in 3D n not 2D...so this doesnt mean ki its moving another dimension but its basically flying in between axes...That doesnt assingn it new dimension...
Another point is that brownian motion is not because its moving in some dimension but because its being attracted from random directions due to same charge on all particles...this mainly occurs fr colloidal particles as the are of same charge...About E coli i dont know much as its very complex...Time is considered as a new dimension as it has properties same as spatial dimension...In space things contract n expand like length..Time also holds the same properties of contraction....N yeah may be our brain is capable enought to understand multidimensional properties...I think ur confused between directions n dimensions or may be i didnt get ur idea dat well...A discussion may be someday!!!!!!!

Siddharth a.k.a. Plasmabhai said...

yes a discussion is required indeed.... see we can understand 3D easily..... but tell me if we consider a photon particle, can we describe it in 3D, i find that idea absurd cause a photon is so small its as good as a point and so its pointless takling about its 3 dimensions (Pun intended!!! hehe)
These multi dimension multi axis idea is only for those particles, not birds or ant for that matter...

Now about brownian motion: Mass bends space-time and so we have the force of gravity (space-time is a dimension). Brownain motion may be due to elctrostatic forces of repulsion but why do we have that force?? may be that also has something to with dimension i dunno.... i just took brownian motion cause it struck me then and suited my model...hehe.... now the Q is not about why brownian motion.... its about why particles take the path they do when they are under brownian motion.... is it completely random?? or have axes something to do with that too??? neways... this definitely warrants a discussion face to face..... :-)

kamlesh said...

Well a photon is not actually a particle but packet of discrete energy.Thus it also called quantised.However being subatomic its wave properties dominate over its particulate nature.However it transfers it energy on interaction with matter i.e tranfers enrgy due to its momentum which is a particulate property.This can be attributed to the speed with which it is moving.Since it moves very fast almost approaching that of light(as it electromagnetic radiation)it possess momenta..NOW we cant measure dimension of such quantum particles experimentally...Theoretically or rather mathematically with help of equations we may be able to assign it dimensions which may be multiple or even not...Desparate discussion needed...Misssing u for such things man!!!!

Siddharth a.k.a. Plasmabhai said...

yes true enuff...... it does travel with the speed of light!!!
but u can take any other particle like an electron instead of a proton....electron i.e. beta radiation.....which has mass also, has particulater as well as wave properties and travels with speed of light!!! and tghen see how this holds......neways...... i swear a desprate discussion needed!!! hehehehe

Nikhil said...

I might not grasp such physics as do you gentlemen, but i agree with both of you on certain points. Dimension could be explained as relative...yes...since we are calling time one dimension, and there is no such thing as absolute time, just before or after an event as perceived by an observer. so i could support the idea that dimensions are relative to the observer. But having said that, we cannot put everything down as subjective hence cannot be proved as a fact...What is accepted as a dimension by our frames of reference is a dimension. no matter what we cant change that.
What plasmabhai says about particles moving in dimensions that we cannot understand-maybe or maybe not, in that case we would not find any observable motion by those molecules. because as you said yourself, our brains would not perceive it.