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03/19/2007: "That Math Thing Again"
listening to: The Black Donneley's on NBCreading: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
Success in mapping 248-dimensional object - LiveScience - MSNBC.com
A total of 18 mathematicians and computer scientists from several countries worked for four years to successfully map the inner working of E8 - one of the most complicated structures in math, a 248-dimensional object. The findings were reported today by the American Institute of Mathematics.
I did not study any topology when I was in college, so I do not understand what a Lie Group is, and I certainly do not understand what E8 is. This article is stunningly devoid of details . . . however, those details may be too complex to include in an MSNBC article. I would imagine if I were to be patient, I could find a more detailed article on a science website. I certainly cannot read any technical paper published in a mathematics journal because it would be written for topology experts.
I remember when my high school math teacher introduced me to string theory . . . the theory that the universe has either ten or eliven dimensions, and is comprised of what amounts to strings. So, my appetite has been activated for something obscenely multi-dimensional.
You do this just to make my head hurt, don'tcha?