Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Shadows of Higher Dimensions

During a visit to Goettingen, Germany several years ago, I visited the mathematics building, built during the height of the department, when brilliant figures like David Hilbert, Hermann Weyl, Emmy Noether and Richard Courant roamed its halls and discussed whether there could be a complete description of mathematics (a hypothesis that would be disproven by Kurt Goedel).  I noticed a marvellous display case in the department's foyer, full of incredible models of polytopes (representations of higher dimensional figures).



I recently developed a presentation about the relationship between these "shadows of higher dimensions" and unified theories of nature:


Imagining the Fifth Dimension


The history of higher dimensions is described in my book:


The Great Beyond