Cohl Furey sounds like a goddamn new Marvel character, but actually she's a mathematical physicist. Can that really be her name? As a novelist, I feel reality is cheating by being so fucking dramatic:https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-octonion-math-that-could-underpin-physics-20180720/ …
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Popularizing science with a lot of math in it is a heroic task... people underrate spokesmodels like Sagan and that Tyson chicken guy because they're celebrities, but it ain't easy.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Roughly, they're the only finite-dimensional division algebras over the real numbers. Unpacking that would take a while, but basically they're the only ones if: a) you want your system to include everyday numbers like 2, 31/7 and pi b) you don't want your system to be too big
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This may be a dumb question, but what if this system HAS to be big? I know, the right answer is usually the simplest (reduce your fractions, kids!), but we ARE looking at shit that may or may not be in a place depending on whether you're looking at it...
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The real numbers are already really big, though! Mathematicians and mathematical physicists often have intuitions like, a system should be big enough to maneuver in, but not so big that you get completely lost in it.
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If it's too big it's useless anyway, in other words?
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Right.
End of conversation
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. Banned in Sweden. SubGenius, Zhuangist, white-hat troll. Defrocked mathematician. Brain problems.