Moment in Universe

I awoke in the middle of the night. The thought of life’s dimensions kept nagging me. I went through them one by one – first dimension, a spot, or dot; second dimension, width and length; third dimension – depth, cubical; fourth dimension, time; fifth dimension, motion; sixth dimension, actively changing shape; seventh dimension, space and gravity, in or out of our atmosphere; eighth dimension? 

And that’s where I ended up. Wondering what the eighth dimension is. Or if there even is one.

Well, the more I thought about this the more I kept thinking about a ‘moment in universe.’ The soaring dot aloft in outer space. That pushed me to consider not just particle physics, but also astrophysics, metaphysics, and just plain physics. Was smell or sound a separate dimension? What about tactile feeling, touch?

From there I kept thinking about matter and how it intersects with itself and others continually, always in motion. Like Fermilab’s experiments shooting atomic particles through the earth’s crust and rock layers from Batavia, Illinois to northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. The particles pass through all solids proving them not solid at all. Like an atom penetrating and piercing a steel I-beam. Or the fact that a pane of glass actually sags in its frame over time. The glass remains a solid, but it is also a liquid and gas at different temperatures.

Does that make temperature the eighth dimension?

OK. Let’s stop there. Perhaps there is a reader out there who can help me think this through. This is important to me but I don’t know why. The logic lures me in.

I fell back to sleep eventually. I sensed a Eureka! moment. That calmed me and allowed sleep to return.

Still, I awoke with clarity of the mental activity and I wrote this posting. It all makes me wonder.

August 21, 2020