I briefly lost the Electron Car in a large three-dimensional space yesterday. That is, I forgot where I parked in a great big four-story garage. Maybe you haven't had this experience, but probably you have. I emerged from the mall as a thunderstorm was brewing and went towards where I usually park in that garage. The lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled, and I saw, in my usual parking space, a Honda CRV that was just like mine, except it was black, not Electron Blue.

My first thought on seeing this was that I had entered into one of Max Tegmark's parallel universes (see my posting from February 9) and that this was my car, but in that universe I had chosen a black one, not a blue one. What, doesn't everyone think about parallel universes in a parking garage? What about parallel parking? Well, after realizing that I was probably still in this universe, I was faced with finding the true Electron.

I traced a path back and forth along the usual directions I go when looking for parking spaces. Of course, I conceived of it in trigonometric and geometric terms. You mean you don't think about parking spaces as trigonometry? I do all the time. I turned 180 degrees from the black car and traversed the perimeter of a large rectangle inscribed on the plane of the second floor of the parking garage. No Electron.

I set my visual scanner (that is, eyes and color memory) to pick out the color of Electron Blue, since my car has such an unusual color that it usually stands out among the duller cars. Instead, I found two bright blue Volkswagen New Beetles and one Toyota RAV4: similar colors, but not the true vehicle.

Then I tried looking for Hondas, that is, car structure, rear-mounted spare tire, and/or logo recognition. But Hondas were everywhere, including CRV's. I passed by and inspected a Honda Positron, that is, a bronze-orange "Element." This car is a Positron because it is a Honda which is the complementary (opposite) color to my blue Electron, thus made of auto-anti-matter. Thank goodness I hadn't parked next to this one. If I had somehow bumped it during entry or exit from the parking space, they would have annihilated each other, along with the entire mall, and myself with it.

I needed to think three-dimensionally. After all, it worked for Mr. Spock in three-dimensional chess and space warfare. I trudged up the stairs (the rain wetting me as I went through the open stairway) to Level Three, hoping to find the car. No joy. The usual spot where I park was empty. Had my car been towed? Stolen? If so, why? No, it was still in this garage somewhere. Now I needed to think historically and do some more trigonometry. Had my car been at an incline at any point during my drive through the garage?

The passageways through the garage from floor to floor, for cars, are at about, say, a 7 degree incline, maybe even more, and I remembered that I had driven downhill. Ahah. Declination, not inclination. I went down the stairs again, watching the lightning flashes illuminate the featureless brick walls of the mall. I had entered the garage on level 2, street level. Take the sine of the angle of declination, and that will bring me to level 1. Down into the dungeon of level 1 went I, as the thunder rumbled. Now things were becoming clearer. I had found no parking spaces on level 2, close to the mall entrance, and had driven down the incline to level 1, where there were plenty of available spaces.

There in the dimness, my blue Electron shone forth. Trigonometry saves the day. And I now know what it is like to solve a math problem not on paper or by calculator, but just by walking through it.

Posted at 2:29 am | link