You may have heard that Santa couldn't possibly deliver toys to all the
children in the world, all in one night (tonight!), and all while obeying
the laws of physics. But add a little secret sauce and presto!

Four Norse scholars have figured out just how the old fellow does it. The
team was put together by forskning.no (hopefully Yahoo! doesn't flag that
as a swear word). The results are here:
===== http://www.physorg.com/news2487.html

Basically, throw in a couple of extra dimensions and everything works out.
Far be it from me to tell Santa how to do it, but this seems like
cheating. Part of the fun of figuring out Why Santa Couldn't Do It was
because it was a puzzle, with real constraints, that you had to work out.
They're basically saying "Santa can do it because... because he can,
that's why."

Can someone offer me one concise definition of "dimension"? If we say we
live in a three dimensional universe, I can understand. Roughly: Up/Down,
Left/Right, Forward/Backward. Add in the so-called fourth dimension,
time, and it all goes to hell. What does it possibly mean to move in
time? We don't walk to and fro in time, but we do in the other three. We
can't measure this "time" thing by anything external to it, anything
objective. But we can with any of the other three.

And then all the pop physicists go talking about the fifth, sixth, and
26th dimensions. What gives?

I think "dimension", in the sense of the original three, is an outdated
concept, like ether and phlogiston. Can any of you offer a good defense
of this concept?

"A brave little theory, and actually quite coherent for a system of five
or seven dimensions--if only we lived in one."
-- Academician Prokhor Zakharov

-todd


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