| Peer-Reviewed

A Physical Explanation on Why Our Space Is Three Dimensional

Received: 12 August 2017     Accepted: 28 August 2017     Published: 21 September 2017
Views:       Downloads:
Abstract

It is a basic, ancient and mysterious issue: why our space is three dimensional? This issue is related to philosophy, mathematics, physics and even religion, and thus aroused great research interests. The author makes an in-depth analysis of the problem, and finally comes to a conclusion: For any vector space with symmetry, orthogonality, homogeneity and completeness, the space dimension must be three on condition that: the energy obeys the law of conservation, the dynamics law is governed by the covariance principle, and thus the cross-product must can be defined in the space. Our space just meets and requires the above constraints, so its dimension is three.

Published in American Journal of Modern Physics (Volume 6, Issue 6)
DOI 10.11648/j.ajmp.20170606.12
Page(s) 122-126
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2017. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Space-time, Dimension, Energy Conservation Law, Covariance Principle, Field Tensor, Cross-product

References
[1] Rynasiewicz, Robert, "Newton's Views on Space, Time, and Motion", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Stanford University).
[2] Schutz, Bernard, Gravity from the Ground Up: An Introductory Guide to Gravity and General Relativity (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
[3] WS Massey, "Cross products of vectors in higher dimensional Euclidean spaces", The American Mathematical Monthly. 90 (10): 697–701. (1983).
[4] Rolfsen, Dale, Knots and Links (Berkeley, California: Publish or Perish, 1976).
[5] N Mankoc Borstnik and H B Nielsen, Why Nature has made a choice of one time and three space coordinates? Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General, 2002, Vol. 35, no 49.
[6] Y Itin, FW Hehl, Is the Lorentz signature of the metric of spacetime electromagnetic in origin? Annals of Physics, 2004, 312(1): 60-83.
[7] D Kothawala, Minimal Length and Small Scale Structure of Spacetime, Physical Review D, 2013, 88(10): 130-130.
[8] T Padmanabhan, S Chakraborty and D Kothawala, Spacetime with zero point length is two-dimensional at the Planck scale, General Relativity & Gravitation, 2016, 48(5): 1-8.
[9] David J Griffiths, Introduction to electrodynamics (Prentice Hall, 3rd ed., pp. 559–562, 1999).
[10] Landau LD and Lifshitz EM, Mechanics (Pergamon Press, 3rd ed., pp. 2–4, 1976).
[11] Griffiths, David J., Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (Prentice Hall, 2nd ed., 2004).
[12] Arnold, V. I., Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics (Springer, 1989).
[13] Ashby, Neil, Relativity and the Global Positioning System, Physics Today, 55 (5): 41–47(2002).
[14] E. J. Post, Formal Structure of Electromagnetics: General Covariance and Electromagnetics (Dover publications).
[15] M. R. Spiegel, S. Lipschutz, D. Spellman, Vector Analysis (USA: McGraw Hill., Schaum’s Outlines, 2nd ed., 2009).
[16] John Lee, Introduction to smooth manifolds (Springer, p. 173, 2000).
[17] Danielson, Donald A, Vectors and Tensors in Engineering and Physics (Westview (Perseus), 2nd ed., 2003).
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Hua Ma. (2017). A Physical Explanation on Why Our Space Is Three Dimensional. American Journal of Modern Physics, 6(6), 122-126. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajmp.20170606.12

    Copy | Download

    ACS Style

    Hua Ma. A Physical Explanation on Why Our Space Is Three Dimensional. Am. J. Mod. Phys. 2017, 6(6), 122-126. doi: 10.11648/j.ajmp.20170606.12

    Copy | Download

    AMA Style

    Hua Ma. A Physical Explanation on Why Our Space Is Three Dimensional. Am J Mod Phys. 2017;6(6):122-126. doi: 10.11648/j.ajmp.20170606.12

    Copy | Download

  • @article{10.11648/j.ajmp.20170606.12,
      author = {Hua Ma},
      title = {A Physical Explanation on Why Our Space Is Three Dimensional},
      journal = {American Journal of Modern Physics},
      volume = {6},
      number = {6},
      pages = {122-126},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ajmp.20170606.12},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajmp.20170606.12},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajmp.20170606.12},
      abstract = {It is a basic, ancient and mysterious issue: why our space is three dimensional? This issue is related to philosophy, mathematics, physics and even religion, and thus aroused great research interests. The author makes an in-depth analysis of the problem, and finally comes to a conclusion: For any vector space with symmetry, orthogonality, homogeneity and completeness, the space dimension must be three on condition that: the energy obeys the law of conservation, the dynamics law is governed by the covariance principle, and thus the cross-product must can be defined in the space. Our space just meets and requires the above constraints, so its dimension is three.},
     year = {2017}
    }
    

    Copy | Download

  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - A Physical Explanation on Why Our Space Is Three Dimensional
    AU  - Hua Ma
    Y1  - 2017/09/21
    PY  - 2017
    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajmp.20170606.12
    DO  - 10.11648/j.ajmp.20170606.12
    T2  - American Journal of Modern Physics
    JF  - American Journal of Modern Physics
    JO  - American Journal of Modern Physics
    SP  - 122
    EP  - 126
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2326-8891
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajmp.20170606.12
    AB  - It is a basic, ancient and mysterious issue: why our space is three dimensional? This issue is related to philosophy, mathematics, physics and even religion, and thus aroused great research interests. The author makes an in-depth analysis of the problem, and finally comes to a conclusion: For any vector space with symmetry, orthogonality, homogeneity and completeness, the space dimension must be three on condition that: the energy obeys the law of conservation, the dynamics law is governed by the covariance principle, and thus the cross-product must can be defined in the space. Our space just meets and requires the above constraints, so its dimension is three.
    VL  - 6
    IS  - 6
    ER  - 

    Copy | Download

Author Information
  • The College of Science, Air Force University of Engineering, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China

  • Sections