Answer 1:
It's definitely cool to think about how a 2D
universe might be organized and how it might
operate. I haven't read Planiverse, but I
understand that it imaginatively examines how
confining a universe like ours into a 2D universe
would affect evolution and the order of things.
So, we know that our universe is 3D, and we don't
know about anything real that is separate from or
outside of the universe around us that we have
studied, so I would say that we can't observe or
visit a real universe that is 2D.
However, we can observe certain systems (not
the entire universe) that are 2D, for example,
molecular systems like graphene that have special
physical properties because of their 2D nature. We
can use mathematical constraints or computer
simulations to restrict traditionally 3D systems
to 2D systems to see how the physics changes under
these constraints. However, just because we can
look at things mathematically or with simulations
doesn't necessary give them physical reality.
We don't have any evidence right now that a 2D
universe would be possible (say if the universe
collapsed and re-expanded but only in 2
dimensions), but it sure is interesting to think
about that scenario and what it would mean--if
such a system could ever support life, whether
planets could ever form, whether stars could form,
and what there would be in place of these familiar
objects in a universe so vastly different from the
one in which we live. |
Answer 2:
A two-dimensional space does not describe the
physics of our universe. We have no means of
observing any universes apart from our own, and
therefore do not know if they exist or not;
consequently, whether or not there are or can be
universes that do is not something that science
can answer, except possibly by modelling them
(e.g. using computers, which we already do). We
currently do not know of the existence of other
universes, and as a result have no known ways of
visiting them.
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