by Playfuls Staff |
19th March 2007
A calculation that, if written out, would cover an area the size of New York's Manhattan has been mapped out by an [more] international team of 18 mathematicians.
Known as E8, experts say the work is important because it can lead to discoveries in mathematics and physics as well as other fields, Boston's Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported.
Mathematicians said the magnitude and nature of the E8 calculation invites comparisons with the Human Genome Project.
Team member David Vogan of MIT's mathematics department said E8 is an example of something called a Lie.
Vogan says Lie groups were invented by the 19th-century Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie as a means of studying symmetry. Underlying any symmetrical object, such as a sphere, is a Lie group.
Mathematicians study symmetries in higher dimensions and E8 has 248 dimensions.
© 2007 UPI
