Albert Einstein has been a hero of mine since I was a kid, along with Leonardo da Vinci.  (Something in my brain just told me they’re the same person – I will have to ask Sweetie if I’d mentioned whether or not Albert was actually Leonardo, reincarnated… I don’t recall right now.)

Anyway, Albie, as he likes to be affectionately called, was one of our guests at Christmas.  I’m a bit of a math / physics nerd myself, so having a conversation with Albie is always great fun. 

The first thing I asked him was, “Are we ever going to get this string theory thing figured out?”

Well yes, indeed!  But!  (I use a lot of exclamation points when writing as Albie, because he’s so enthusiastic.)  The problem with our system is, we don’t have all the numbers.  We must discover more numbers, and we must discover the formulas to describe a fourth dimension and as it acts upon the reality we experience when incarnated.

Albie, what do you mean, more numbers?

He showed me a line of numbers:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Then he showed his hands reaching in between and under the space these whole numbers describe.  Immediately I went to decimals/fractions and got slapped down.  No!  We’re not talking about pieces of these whole numbers here.  We’re talking about the spaces between these numbers which is not currently described in our numerical system. 

This is because our numbers resulted from us lining up objects – say, apples.  1,2,3 apples in a row.  Now, you cut up an apple.  You don’t have 1,2,3,4, you have ½, ½, 2, 3  That’s the limitation of our current form of expression. 

He then shows me ice on the surface of a pond.  You see one thing.  1.  Ice.  That’s a whole number.

Then he says, “You must see more, the patterns that repeat between the numbers,” and he shows me something I’m quite familiar with – fractals.

Fractals are repeating patterns in nature – the universe is full of them.  Physicists can spend their entire careers investigating and testing fractal formulas.  Thousands of experiments have borne out that fractal patterning has something, a key something, to do with how life perpetuates itself.  It’s like searching for the key to power the perpetual motion machine.

So we’re on the right track here.

 

Albie says, “You must look closer,” and we zoom in upon the ice to see the crystal patterning that makes up the substance of the structure.  The pattern is feathering, curling, spiraling, building upon itself infinitely.  (This is not real ice made of finite molecules he’s showing me, but as we look closer and closer, we find this pattern of creation repeats.)

“The problem with your numbers is, we don’t have enough of them to describe this pattern.  Our numbers can only look at the surface, our three-dimensional formulas can not describe the repetition of the pattern in great enough detail that it will make sense to our brains.

“So what we need is more numbers?”

“Yes.  Our number system is base 10.  (The numbers start repeating after 9) – what we need is a base 1,000.  This means we have completely new, single-digit figures to describe 10-999, before we start with double-digits.  We must change our thinking.

“Are we working on this?”

“Oh yes, I am working quite closely with physicists,” and he shows me himself whispering in their ears, waking them up from a dead sleep with ideas.  “The ones in California are doing quite well, but the ones in Switzerland are doing better.  They have a computer and they are working on the numerical system with base 100.  Once the computers are able to describe the patterns, the human mind will begin to intuitively understand it.  We have to *imagine* it is possible, and then we will understand.”

This reminds me of the Einstein quote on the poster of Albie I had in my bedroom as a teenager:  “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

And the second, “Peace cannot be kept by force; it may only be achieved through understanding.”

Hmmm.  I know someone else who likes to talk about imagination, peace and understanding. 

“One more important thing you are missing:  a fourth dimension.”  Albie explained this to me by showing me a two dimensional line graph we commonly use in school, then adding the third line which symbolizes the third dimension.  This is still familiar to many of us who enjoy formulas used to describe a vector in space.

But then, Albie adds another line, right at the centre, which seems to turn the whole graph inside out. 

“This is the fourth dimension.  There are more dimensions, but you need to have at least four dimensions and base 1000 integers to be able to comprehend the fractal creation pattern you’re attempting to describe with string/M theory.”

Then Albie goes on, and this is my favourite part:

“Don’t worry, soon (how soon?) we will be teaching this formula to children.  For a few decades, this concept will be considered to be something only the highest minds in physics can wrap around, but then, we will begin teaching this to children, and you know what we will discover?

Children have an intuitive understanding of the concept of the infinite.  Children will learn in a day what grown men struggle to understand for years.  And you know who will be especially adept at the new math?  Young girls.

Really, Albie? 

(I gotta say, I felt personally vindicated by this.  I actually had a teacher tell me I shouldn’t try to keep up with my male friends in quantum mechanics, because they were “unusually intelligent” – the implied statement being that I was not as smart as my friends.  This pissed me off so much that I dropped the class; but the thing was, I *knew* I understood the nature of the physics he was trying to teach, and I was asking him questions he didn’t know how to answer.  I knew that the theories he was teaching as fact were fundamentally incorrect, and in fact, a few of these theories have been disproven in the past ten years.)

“Young girls,” Albie continued, “Have a unique advantage of having especially keen minds between the ages of 10 and 14.  This is the best time for them to learn physics theory.  This is because the brain is still agile, and yet not distracted by the body in the way young boys are.  Hormones that kick in for young boys affect and distract the mind much more than young girls in this time of their lives.  Girls will be the future of physics one day.”

 “This is why at this age, so many young girls feel they are not good at math – this is because they intuitively sense the flawed nature of the system we try to teach.  Their minds rebel against it, refuse to incorporate contradictory information.” 

Albie flashed to a shot of me at 16, bent over my calculus books.  I had a terrific struggle with calculus and was in fact failing the class for the first two months.  But, I had an excellent teacher who inspired me to work hard, and I used to go to the library for two hours every day and write out the formulas over and over.

One day, something in my brain clicked, and I intuitively understood all the concepts at once.  From that day forward I loved calculus, and I finished the class with 98%.  My beautiful teacher even allowed me to retake tests I’d failed earlier in the semester, so that my final grade would reflect my *current* understanding of the subject.

“This moment,” Albie showed me the day I *clicked* “is when you set aside your intuitive understanding of the fourth dimension.  When you set that aside, all the relationships make sense, and you can isolate and admire this small part of the fractal we dance with in our daily lives.”

The trouble with setting aside this intuitive understanding is that when physicists progress to the point of attempting to describe the nature of the universe and all creation, they have only at their disposal the tools which describe our limited experience of the universe during incarnation which is but a tiny portion of our existence.

“You must forget everything you learned in school.  Then the real learning may commence!”

 

That’s our first Albert Einstein Friday folks.  Next week, George (former Harrison) will begin his contributions.