Dacyn comments on The Least Convenient Possible World - Less Wrong

165 Post author: Yvain 14 March 2009 02:11AM

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Comment author: SanguineEmpiricist 23 April 2016 09:16:51PM *  0 points [-]

First i've heard of this, super interesting. Hmm. So what is the correct way to highlight the differences while still maintaining the historical angle? Continue w/ Riemannian geometry? Or just say what you have said, Lorentzian.

Comment author: Dacyn 04 May 2016 11:13:45PM 0 points [-]

Special relativity is good enough for most purposes, which means that (a time slice of) the real universe is very nearly Euclidean. So if you are going to explain the geometry of the universe to someone, you might as well just say "very nearly Euclidean, except near objects with very high gravity such as stars and black holes".

I don't think it's helpful to compare with Euclid's postulates, they reflect a very different way of thinking about geometry than modern differential geometry.