Brian Wecht

speaker

852 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 5 Sep

Brian Wecht’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.

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The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe · The Skeptics Guide #1104 - Sep 5 2026 · 5 Sep 2026 podcast

Mathematicians were able to find special lattices where they put the centers of spheres in these extra dimensions, which are particularly good for creating these sphere packings.

And what's interesting

The problem, which is not known, and this is a big problem with sphere packing, is why does the densest packing have to be on a regular lattice?

How do you know that it can't just be some crazy irregular thing?

And in some dimensions, I think 10 being 1, there is an irregular sphere packing which is known to be denser than a regular sphere packing.

So the general problem is wide open, and only in these certain special dimensions do we actually know what the densest packing is.

Write it up.

Now, Bob, you did say 8 and 24 sound interesting

you.

Here's why.

8 plus 2 is 10, and 24 plus 2 is 26.

Which are critical dimensions for string

So the masonic string theory naturally sits in 26 dimensions, and super strings naturally sit in 10 dimensions, and those are related.

So 8 and 24 are special things that do show up in string theory.

Okay, number two.

Black holes in four space-time dimensions are uniquely characterized by their mass and angular momentum, but the equivalent result in five space-time dimensions is no longer true, meaning that there can be multiple singular solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations with the same mass and angular momentum.

Now, Bob, Steve, and Kara think this is the fiction, and this is science.

much.

So, this is actually really, really interesting.

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