Lightning And Straight Lines

Have you ever wondered why a bolt of lightning doesn't go in a straight line, or maybe it does?

A bolt of lightning prompts thinking about the nature of straight lines, and what exactly a straight line is. A bolt of lightning will take the path of least resistance to it's destination. It is excess electrons proceeding either from the cloud to the ground, from the ground to the cloud, or between two clouds. 

But why is this path of least resistance not exactly the same thing as what we see as a straight line, when it would seem that the path of least distance should also be the path of least resistance? If we could see the lightning bolt from the perspective of one of it's electrons, it would certainly seem that it had traveled in a perfectly straight line, not what we see as the typically jagged path of a lightning bolt.

This brings us to the nature of straight lines, and since a straight line is defined as the shortest distance between two points, it brings us to the nature of distance. We see distance in terms of straight lines but an electron in the lightning bolt would see it in terms of energy, a "straight line" being the route of lowest energy between two points instead of the shortest distance.

But then what exactly is distance? Is it the amount of space between two points or the amount of energy in the space between two points, or does it even matter? We define distance as how much energy or time we would have to expend to get there or how much light is hindered and reduced in getting from there to us.

The trouble with our definition of a straight line is that we will always define the path of light as a straight line, because we get our information from light. We can see by a jagged lightning bolt that a straight line might be open to definition. The path of lowest energy of an electron in a lightning bolt may not be exactly the same as the path of light.

The definition of a straight line seems to be dependent on the dimensions of space. A straight line in a lower dimensional order might not be a straight line, meaning the most direct route between two points, in a higher dimensional order. A living being is only aware of the dimensions of it's own order and would be unaware of any higher dimensional order of which it was a part.

Our dimensional order is four dimensions, one of which we perceive as time. There is no reason to believe that there couldn't be more dimensions of space than this. It would actually be the lowest information state for there to be an infinite number of dimensions, since this would avoid having to make the choice of a number. If we could see in a higher dimensional order, we might see that what we thought was a straight line was not actually a straight line. Just as with the lightning bolt.

My cosmology theory has electrons as one-dimensional strings. Lightning does not appear to us to take a perfectly straight route because we are of a higher dimensional order than the electrons in a lightning bolt. What they "see" as a straight line is not exactly a straight line in our view.

Distance in a lower dimensional order is longer than in a higher dimensional order. This is because the "shortcuts" that would be visible in a higher dimensional order cannot be seen. Suppose that there was a one-dimensional being in a lower corner of a box, and it wanted to move to the diagonally opposite upper corner. It would be unable to see that it could go directly across the box, because that would require seeing in three dimensions. Neither would it be able to see that it could go diagonally across the box, to the opposite corner, because that would require seeing in two dimensions.

The one-dimensional being would have to take the journey one dimension at a time, in three legs along the vertices of the box. It would be unaware of, and unable to access, the diagonal "shortcut" directly across the box. We see the being's journey as three legs, one in each dimension of the box, but it would see itself as having moved only in a straight line. It couldn't be aware of the "turns" because that would require a two-dimensional order. In the same way, electrons in the bolt of lightning would see themselves as moving in a perfectly straight line. The path of least resistance and a straight line would be one and the same.

If a one-dimensional being was at Point 1, in the following image, and wanted to get to Point 2, it would see the distance as the three vertices in red, A, B and, C, but would see it as a straight line. It would be utterly unaware of the diagonal shortcut across the box.

Remember the Pythagorean Theorem. In a right triangle, which is a triangle with one right angle, the squares of the two legs, added together, is equal to the square of the diagonal. This is usually expressed as C squared = A squared + B squared. This theorem works in multiple dimensions.

The one-dimensional being would see, if the box is a cube with each side having a dimension of 1, the distance to the diagonally opposite upper corner as a straight line distance of 3. We, with our dimensional order being the same as the box, see it as a straight line distance of the square root of 3, which is 1.732.

Where does that bring us considering that it would be the lowest information state for there to be an infinite number of dimensions, because that would avoid having to make the choice of a number? We are of only four dimensions, one of which we perceive as time. That means our dimensional order is infinitesimal with regard to the universe. 

We see the distances in the universe as infinite. But this could just be the result of our dimensional perspective. The universe could be infinitesimal in space, on the order of an electron, but of an infinite number of dimensions. Since we are of an infinitesimal dimensional order, we would have to see the distances in the universe as infinite and be utterly unaware of the "shortcuts" across the universe, just as with the electrons in the bolt of lightning.