on the fractal nature of space-time


	on the fractal nature of space-time

pascual

6-25-2008 1:22 PM

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tags:

physics

pascual says:

sciam

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/89912011-00cf-42bc-9bf0-940754ef768e/8A6B79E7-22A7-4DFB-808C-274AC0654737/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-self-organizing-quantum-universe&page=4" href="http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-self-organizing-quantum-universe&page=4" style="font-size: 11px;">www.sciam.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-self-organizing-quantum-universe&page=4">The outcome is pretty mind-boggling: the number of dimensions depends on the scale. In other words, if we let the diffusion go on for just a short while, spacetime appears to have a different number of dimensions than when we let it run for a long time. Even those of us who specialize in quantum gravity can scarcely imagine how spacetime could smoothly change its dimension depending on the resolution of one's microscope. Evidently, a small object experiences spacetime in a profoundly different way than a large object does. To that object, the universe has something akin to a fractal structure. A fractal is a bizarre kind of space where the concept of size simply does not exist. It is self-similar, which means that it looks the same on all scales. This implies there are no rulers and no other objects of a characteristic size that can serve as a yardstick.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/8A6B79E7-22A7-4DFB-808C-274AC0654737/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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