Flower of E8

You may have heard of the "flower of life"



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_of_life

The flower of life is basically a simple geometric pattern which allows for all geometric primary forms to be constructed. You can build in the geometry of "the flower of life" all 2d shapes [circles, triangles, lines] and all 3d shapes [cubes, pyramids, spheres etc.] and other shapes like octagons, pentagons etc. all just by connecting different points together. Sort of like a blue-print for all geometry.

The flower of life goes further though, in stating that all life 'builds' from increasing complexity of geometry within the flower of life. For example, an embryo starts as a point, then as two spheres [line] then as four then as a diamond [8 spheres in diamond 3D positions] etc. If you look at the flower of life, those are all the shapes covered in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th increments.

All kinds of other religions have based concepts and ideas around the flower of life, its motif is found everywhere and it is very old.

Another example: the Christians see creation as the 7 first geometries [spheres] of the flower of life, known as the "seed of life":



Well now there is the mathematical theory of a geometric structure which could actually embody "what our universe looks like". This structure is known to math heads as the E8.

The E8 is an 8 dimensional sphere with 248 points [vertexes].

If you classify in math the shapes and dimensions which can be transformed into symmetrical groups, ie dimensions or shapes which allow symmetrical translation, and you don't limit yourself to just 3 dimensions, you end up with 9 groups: 4 of them are infinite, 5 of them are finite.

Of the infinite, one of them is 3 dimensional space we live in. These 4 infinite groups have no bounding shape, meaning that their space has no limits. of the 5 finite groups, they are symmetrical, but only when bounded together by a fixed shape. Of the 5 exceptional ones, the largest/most complex possible mathematically is E8.

According to the math-heads, E8 is the largest possible symmetrical group you can create that is finite; kind of like saying its the 'largest primary number possible' - if it were possible for primary numbers to have a 'largest' limit.

E8's underlying math was only finally described in terms of a complete formula [mathematical representation] this year, so it's a new discovery in mathematics.

Being 8 dimensional, its kinda hard to visualize in 3D or 2D. This image is how it looks if flattened in 2D:



The logic to build it follows this little drawing:



This diagram gives a visual summary of the root structure. Each node of this diagram represents a simple root. There are 8 roots in E8, and from these 8 roots you can build the entire 248 set of points. A line joining two simple roots indicates that they are at an angle of 120° to each other. Two simple roots which are not joined by a line are orthogonal [at right angles to each other].

So basically all roots are either at 120 degrees or 90 degrees to each other. So either in fourths or thirds of a full rotation.

You can make a 3D model of the root points, if you do so, you end up with something like this:



What makes this geometric structure so exciting to the science-heads is that physical reality may result from different facets of the symmetries of E8.

If we take all the different forces and particles, they match up with the resulting points on E8. When you match all the points to all the known forces and particles, 20 of the points on the E8 are left unmatched, these "gaps" could, for example, represent particles which some physicists predict to be associated with gravity [but not yet detected].

Physicists have long puzzled over why elementary particles appear to belong to families, but if you look at the E8 model, this arises naturally from the geometry of E8. Furthermore, so far all the interactions predicted by the geometrical relationships inside E8 match with observations in the real world.

Proof or disproof will probably be achieved when the new particle accelerator in Switzerland opens.

At the moment many different theories are betting on them being right... will it be Standard model theories? String theories? M-plane theories? or this new E8 which make the accurate predictions?

If it does turn out to be the E8 which holds the flame, the implications are quite extra ordinary because it means that our entire universe's fundamental under workings and forces can all be described as a 248 point 8D geometric sphere... how weird would that be???

If this does turn out to be true, what relationships does this E8 have to the flower of life? Are the two related?

Wouldn't it be interesting that the most fundamental [finite] [micro] aspects of reality would be described by the most complex [finite] [macro] symmetrical object we know exists...?

If it is true that our reality can be described by an object which resides in the 8th dimension and which has a finite limit, how does that relate to our 3rd dimension? Is the 3rd dimension "bound" by the limits of the 8th? Or is the 3rd dimension unbounded but simply intercepts with the 8th dimension in local space-time? can this model be integrated with m-plane theory? Or is the theory of E8 and 11 dimensional membranes incompatible?

As always, new answers will mean new questions... isn't life good that way?
:)

The wiki page for the flower of life is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_of_life

If you don't mind the tone of voice, you can find more about the E8 theory here:

telegraph article on E8 theory of everything

Impossibly difficult to understand for non-math heads information about the E8 specifically can be read at:

wikipedia's E8 page
and here:
http://aimath.org/E8/e8.html




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