
    Dismiss Notice
Dismiss Notice
Join Physics Forums Today!

Planetary and atomic systems in N dimensions

  1. Nov 28, 2007 #1

    Suppose that a human head is a sphere with the bone thickness 10% of the radius of the
    head. Find the fraction of the volume of the head occupied by the brain. Make a similar estimate (forget about factors of pi) in the N-dimensional space (d = N) in the limit N -> infinity.

    For the existence of life of our type we must have atomic and planetary systems. Do stable atomic and planetary systems exist for d > 3? We also need to have free particles like electrons moving far away from atoms (for conductivity, and to have ions). Can we have them for d < 3?

    3. The attempt at a solution

    finding fraction of volume is simple but I don't know how you'd go about making an estimate in the N-dimensional space. would it just be r^N instead of r^3 in the volume?

    For the second part, i'm not even sure what the question is trying to get at. I was thinking maybe Gauss law could be used to say that the field of charge is inversely proportional to the area of N-1 dimensional sphere surrounding it. Still that doesn't take me anywhere...any suggestions?
  2. jcsd
  3. Nov 28, 2007 #2


    User Avatar
    Science Advisor
    Homework Helper
    Gold Member

  4. Nov 28, 2007 #3
    1 dimention: a line [tex]x[/tex]
    2 dimensions: a square [tex]x^2[/tex]
    3 dimensions: a cube [tex]x^3[/tex]
    N dimentions: ? [tex]x^N[/tex]
  5. Nov 28, 2007 #4
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 23, 2017

Similar Discussions: Planetary and atomic systems in N dimensions
  1. Planetary system (Replies: 5)