Thread: E8

E8 should be a symmetric 248 dimensional object that (I don’t know why) had a mathematical problem.

I would like to know what this problem is.

Oh and the 248 dimensions are spatial I would guess, or am I wrong?
In what kind of way is the object symmetric (mirrored ect.). I understand allot about higher dimensions so explaining that is excrescent.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=9015527

I moved this from physics, after a lifetime in physics, I just cannot make the connection, - I think it belongs in the maths section.

Mega, E8 is one of the symmetry groups for one flavour of super symmetric string theory - that's the physics connection.

I just tossed a coin - it's definitely maths - a coin can't lie!

E8 itself is geometry(therefor mathematical,), but partly of my questions have to do with physics and the dimensions. It seems that no one knows more than I do about E8.

Can you please explain what is this group is about?

Well Miomaz, I'll leave it to you, but I suspect the mathematicians are better able to answer than the physicists who spend most of their time arguing about what 1 4D 'cube' looks like, - Your call mate.

the 4d cube's shadow, one might want to say, a point of view simplifying the perspectives to a lower dimension

here from 4d to 3d


and here from 3d to 2d (rectangle)

in a top-down perspective.

As you see, the 3d cube drawn in a top down view, can be simplified to a 2d object.
The same rule applies for the 3d to 4d, while the picture of the 4d cube just a "shadow" or at an angle in the 4th spatial dimension that lines up to again the 3d shadow.

Sounds complicated but it isn't.

how this relates to E8?

E8 is a 248 dimensional circle (which wouldn't be a circle anymore)

the problem itself to me is unknown.

Well, it's a Lie group. Ready for that? Know what a group is, know what a manifold is? A Lie group is both, simultaneously. Lie groups also have an associated algebra, which is nice, but tough, in a way.

Satisfied? Will I say more?

EDIT: This is cool: http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/..._about_e8.html

Do I understand it? Hmm, ask me tomorrow!