- #1
Unkraut
- 30
- 1
I don't know anything about GTR, nor do I know anything about differential geometry. But I have one maybe stupid question:
As far as I know space-time in general relativity is represented by a pseudo-riemannian manifold. And according to Whitney's (or Nash's? - don't know who is in charge here) embedding theorem every (Riemannian) manifold can be embedded (isometrically) into an euclidic R^n.
So, if we now have some curved space-time manifold and we find the smallest possible embedding R^n. Could the extra dimensions in the embedding space have any physical meaning? Or are they even known to?
In other words: Would it perhaps make any sense to suppose some "virtual" processes to happen within that embedding space, I mean, just like calculating with complex numbers but only taking real results "for real", that kind of thing?
I'm just a curious pseudo-mathematician trying to understand some physics and asking questions that come to my mind. Sorry if it's stupid.
Unkraut
As far as I know space-time in general relativity is represented by a pseudo-riemannian manifold. And according to Whitney's (or Nash's? - don't know who is in charge here) embedding theorem every (Riemannian) manifold can be embedded (isometrically) into an euclidic R^n.
So, if we now have some curved space-time manifold and we find the smallest possible embedding R^n. Could the extra dimensions in the embedding space have any physical meaning? Or are they even known to?
In other words: Would it perhaps make any sense to suppose some "virtual" processes to happen within that embedding space, I mean, just like calculating with complex numbers but only taking real results "for real", that kind of thing?
I'm just a curious pseudo-mathematician trying to understand some physics and asking questions that come to my mind. Sorry if it's stupid.
Unkraut