Aviation Tech: Of Reality and Man

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On the application of VR, AR and MR in the aviation industry.

On the topic of trending Aviation Tech, we will be talking about some recent advances. Specifically, in the applications of VR, AR, and the most recent one, MR in the aviation industry.

But before talking about those alternative realities and how they can help shape the future of aviation tech, let us back track a bit and talk about reality itself.

Let there be light

Genesis 1:3

Reality varies according to the watcher; watchers such as humans, animals or even cellular organisms have different perceptions of reality.   

For us humans, reality is our perception of the universe around us; it’s the shape of things that we touch and feel and the time we spend. Waiting for a doctor’s appointment takes forever while watching an exciting game on TV with friends finishes far too quickly.

We do live in a spacetime consisting of 3 dimensions that define space and a fourth dimension that defines time. As basic as it seems, this concept of a 4-dimensional universe is relatively new and started to take shape in the 18th century.

In our case, we see our surroundings in 3 dimensions while times passes by and that is our reality.

Latter theoretical physicists told us that we do live in more than 4 dimensions. Some claim it to be 11 dimensions, others 21 dimensions and the list goes on based on different theories.

Here we are not talking about the 11D cinemas. In those cases, dimensions may include vibration or scent.

M-Theory

Here we are talking about a universe that is beyond our understanding of reality. Take, for example, the 11-dimensional M-theory where the fifth dimension is a parallel universe (if you live in such universe you will have a similar perception of reality) and the sixth dimension is made up of infinite parallel universes. The list of dimensions goes on while manipulating the laws of physics.

Other types of people came up with a different kind of idea.

Instead of 4, 5 or N integer number of dimensions that govern our universe, hence our perception of reality, what if there is a half dimension or maybe 2.849212 dimension and so on.

Who came up with such an idea? Mathematicians of course; who else can come up with something like this!

The Math Side of Things

The Cantor set is an example of those fractal dimensions: a line where we remove the middle third and we end up with 2 lines and then we remove the middle third of those 2 lines and continue to do this to infinity.

We end up with line that is of a measure 0 according to our understanding of reality but have uncountable points.

In the early 1900s, a German mathematician by the name of Hausdorff came along and said, “Well, it can’t be true that this is a zero measure.” Thus, he invented his own way to measure not only this set but another similar one.

He found out that the actual “size” or dimension is 0.6309 dimension.

So, imagine for example, a 0.52115-dimensional organism living in “our” 4-dimensional universe that exists in 11 dimensions.  

Our reality of spacetime is limited to our senses and perception of the world around us. Therefore, going beyond this may get complicated as not-really explained above.

Luckily VR, AR and MR are not complicated, as those technologies don’t take us beyond our spacetime but rather enhance our understanding of it. This is especially true in their application for aviation tech.

Disclaimers:

  • Click Aviation Network and its aviation tech laboratories are not working on a time travel machine.
  • Click Aviation Network isn’t aware if any of its members is working on a time travel machine.