[quote=Halo]
I have no idea. I don't understand it! :P I assumed you did, as I know you have a mathematical background, and the rules discussed in the video are essentially those that are in place in the study of mathematical topology. The idea is that any two objects that can be morphed into one another without puncturing or ripping the "material" are the same - as long as they're transformed into eachother through continuous deformation. A donut and a coffee mug? They're the same, 'cause they both only have one hole (donut in the centre, mug in the handle) and can be morphed into one another without puncturing or ripping. It's a huge area of study and I'm woefully clueless on it, honestly - but I need to be clued up on it in order to study theoretical physics, particularly string theory. I mean, spacetime itself is a 4-dimensional manifold, and string theory does some crazy shit with multidimensional space... bosonic string theory requires there to be 26 dimensions and superstring theory requires there to be 10.Sorry if I've missed a joke you were making or something, or am repeating stuff you're already aware of. I decided to take the post at face value xD
[/quote]

I wasn't actually joking. I don't really know any more than the cliffnotes version of it, so I figured I might as well ask you for more background on it. I think I'm still pretty far from calling myself good at maths, even if it seems like I've studied up a bit. I suppose I should've rephrased that as "What do I need to learn to learn topology?"

A lot of my maths knowledge is hacked from bits and pieces of a lot of different fields rather than any one in specific, and it all feels rather inadecuate, when it comes down to it, mostly because it's all very superficial knowledge.

I'm still learning, mind you.