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Does anyone have a good way of explaining to a layman how a dimension can be small?
by donutz 11y ago
Does anyone have a good way of explaining to a layman how a dimension can be small?
- sdenton4 11y agoImagine a cylinder. It has one flat direction, which goes on forever, and a curved direction which can have a very short circumference.
- aardvark179 11y agoConsider the outside of a straw. The surface is a curved two-dimensional space which is bounded in one direction only by the length of the straw, but is quite small in the other (the circumference of the straw). If the straw is very long and very thin then it may appear to be essentially 1-dimensional, but the surface is still two dimensional.
- DubiousPusher 11y agoNice example. Wouldn't there be easily measurable evidence of this? Imagine a flattened caterpillar like creature living on such a straw. Unwittingly, one day it might wrap itself round the straw many times. Looking back, seeing itself turned round the straw in this way, wouldn't it see slices of itself rather than a whole?
- evanpw 11y agoIn the caterpillar's universe, light rays wrap around the surface of the straw too, so they won't see anything "missing".
- DubiousPusher 11y agoAwww, of course.
- donum 11y agoFunnily enough, the same question is currently at the top of /r/AskScience: http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/42u57e/how_can_a_dimension_be_small/ http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/42u57e/how_can_a...