From: Mitchell Porter (mitchtemporarily@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Jan 31 2006 - 19:51:57 MST
>He thought that the human brain is wired to index memories
>seven-dimensionally, seven dimensions being optimal "because" the
>hypersurface area of an n-sphere is maximized at n=7 (here I use the
>topological naming convention, in which n is the dimensionality of the
>surface, so a 7-sphere inhabits 8-dimensional space).
It's been pointed out to me that this is wrong, that hypersurface area is
maximized by a "geometer's 7-sphere", which is the topologist's *6*-sphere.
McKinstry apparently got confused by the different naming conventions.
'Unfortunately, geometers and topologists adopt incompatible conventions for
the meaning of "n-sphere"... Extreme caution is therefore advised when
consulting the literature."
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Hypersphere.html
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