Graphene, a material composed of carbon atoms, is gradually working its way into our culture, and soon everyone will be familiar with the material. It is both flexible and strong, and it can be thinner than a sheet of paper. Its electrical properties are impressive, and it can replace current materials used in most technologies, including phones, computers, aircraft, and even clothing. You might think of it as nylon or Teflon on steroids.
Nobel prize-winning professors Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov of the University of Manchester will someday find their names in textbooks as two who took the world into a new stage of technological development because of their invention. As graphene works its way into our lives, we might note a need for a similar advance in that other part of our existence, the immaterial one, the world of emotions and thoughts, for both require flexibility and strength if they are to withstand the stresses of their environments.
Graphene is remarkable because it can exist in just two dimensions: A layer just one-atom thick. It is, in fact, the first two-dimensional crystalline substance, and it is both flexible and 200 times stronger than steel. That two-dimensional crystalline structure invites a comparison to interlocked hexagons in a sheet of common chicken wire fencing though metal wires that are many atoms thick are three, and not two, dimensional.
The material and immaterial worlds in which we live aren’t very similar. Even a supposed two-dimensional sheet of graphene has the “thickness” of an atom. Our physical world is three-dimensional in its thinnest forms. And ascribing dimensionality to emotions and thoughts is, at best, figurative. We can say, for example, that someone thinks linearly, but that limits a sequence of thoughts unrealistically: In our best efforts at concentration, we have brain regions competing for attention and contrasting and complementary thoughts and emotions vying for dominance. We also mix emotions and thoughts as both occur in the presence of the other seemingly simultaneously, maybe making a mix better than any Bose-Einstein Condensate.
“What about that monk on the mountain?” you ask. “Surely, he is the epitome of graphene-like thinking. His power of concentration, acquired after years of self-denial and mediation, make him unlike the rest of us scatter-brained products of a helter-skelter world, our thinking and emotions looking like those flashing bar graphs that indicate our effort on a treadmill," you add. "And a monk in meditation probably has mathematical linearity of thought as I understand the definition of line. Unlike our up-and-down cognitive efforts, the monk’s thoughts make a graphed line in X and Y dimensions.”
“No," I say, "and if I may be allowed to juxtapose material and immaterial worlds, he’s still immaterially “thicker” than chicken wire and more like a Venn diagram than like a line graph, and by comparison with crystalline structures is like most, if not all, natural crystals, imperfect because of included foreign elements. Even diamond, that other carbon substance, often includes non-carbon atoms that change its color. So also, the monk's thinking isn't 'pure.' Whoa! How did we get to this point?
“Think of how I’ve led you through this little essay. I began with a discussion of the relatively new material called graphene, noting its ‘two-dimensionality.’ I then added a ‘thickness’ by making you think of thinking and emoting, drawing, as I guided you, through contrasts and comparisons. Now, you’re asking yourself, ‘Am I multidimensional?’ And you’re responding, ‘Of course, I am.’ And you’re also saying, ‘What do I mean by dimensions? How can I compare the physical world with that other, immaterial, world that I recognize in myself? Am I changing my definition of dimensionality?’
“Sorry, I just had to do that to make a point because too many people want to ascribe two-dimensionality (or even one-dimensional linearity) to others. We’re all rather complex beings, and living in the times that we do, we have layers of complexity thrown on us daily, not to mention all these new materials and products made from them. It should surprise all of us, then, that in such a multidimensional age there are still so many who want to ascribe simplicity to others, to say, for example, that because one holds this or that perspective, he or she is uni- or two-dimensional. Yet, simultaneously, we shouldn’t be surprised. It’s easier to see others as flat sheets of uniform structures of singular composition than it is to see them as complex intersecting crystals composed of many elements.
“Just as you aren’t one- or two-dimensional, so others aren’t. Just as you aren’t simply linear, so others aren’t. Graphene will change our technology and our material world and make two-dimensionality an important part of our three dimensional world, but it will never serve as an analog for our multidimensional emotions and thoughts.”
Nobel prize-winning professors Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov of the University of Manchester will someday find their names in textbooks as two who took the world into a new stage of technological development because of their invention. As graphene works its way into our lives, we might note a need for a similar advance in that other part of our existence, the immaterial one, the world of emotions and thoughts, for both require flexibility and strength if they are to withstand the stresses of their environments.
Graphene is remarkable because it can exist in just two dimensions: A layer just one-atom thick. It is, in fact, the first two-dimensional crystalline substance, and it is both flexible and 200 times stronger than steel. That two-dimensional crystalline structure invites a comparison to interlocked hexagons in a sheet of common chicken wire fencing though metal wires that are many atoms thick are three, and not two, dimensional.
The material and immaterial worlds in which we live aren’t very similar. Even a supposed two-dimensional sheet of graphene has the “thickness” of an atom. Our physical world is three-dimensional in its thinnest forms. And ascribing dimensionality to emotions and thoughts is, at best, figurative. We can say, for example, that someone thinks linearly, but that limits a sequence of thoughts unrealistically: In our best efforts at concentration, we have brain regions competing for attention and contrasting and complementary thoughts and emotions vying for dominance. We also mix emotions and thoughts as both occur in the presence of the other seemingly simultaneously, maybe making a mix better than any Bose-Einstein Condensate.
“What about that monk on the mountain?” you ask. “Surely, he is the epitome of graphene-like thinking. His power of concentration, acquired after years of self-denial and mediation, make him unlike the rest of us scatter-brained products of a helter-skelter world, our thinking and emotions looking like those flashing bar graphs that indicate our effort on a treadmill," you add. "And a monk in meditation probably has mathematical linearity of thought as I understand the definition of line. Unlike our up-and-down cognitive efforts, the monk’s thoughts make a graphed line in X and Y dimensions.”
“No," I say, "and if I may be allowed to juxtapose material and immaterial worlds, he’s still immaterially “thicker” than chicken wire and more like a Venn diagram than like a line graph, and by comparison with crystalline structures is like most, if not all, natural crystals, imperfect because of included foreign elements. Even diamond, that other carbon substance, often includes non-carbon atoms that change its color. So also, the monk's thinking isn't 'pure.' Whoa! How did we get to this point?
“Think of how I’ve led you through this little essay. I began with a discussion of the relatively new material called graphene, noting its ‘two-dimensionality.’ I then added a ‘thickness’ by making you think of thinking and emoting, drawing, as I guided you, through contrasts and comparisons. Now, you’re asking yourself, ‘Am I multidimensional?’ And you’re responding, ‘Of course, I am.’ And you’re also saying, ‘What do I mean by dimensions? How can I compare the physical world with that other, immaterial, world that I recognize in myself? Am I changing my definition of dimensionality?’
“Sorry, I just had to do that to make a point because too many people want to ascribe two-dimensionality (or even one-dimensional linearity) to others. We’re all rather complex beings, and living in the times that we do, we have layers of complexity thrown on us daily, not to mention all these new materials and products made from them. It should surprise all of us, then, that in such a multidimensional age there are still so many who want to ascribe simplicity to others, to say, for example, that because one holds this or that perspective, he or she is uni- or two-dimensional. Yet, simultaneously, we shouldn’t be surprised. It’s easier to see others as flat sheets of uniform structures of singular composition than it is to see them as complex intersecting crystals composed of many elements.
“Just as you aren’t one- or two-dimensional, so others aren’t. Just as you aren’t simply linear, so others aren’t. Graphene will change our technology and our material world and make two-dimensionality an important part of our three dimensional world, but it will never serve as an analog for our multidimensional emotions and thoughts.”
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