the.com/subspace
The smaller universe hiding inside the bigger one, obeying all the same rules.
means A smaller space tucked inside a larger one, inheriting the same mathematical rules but staying a world of its own.
from Built plainly from 'sub-' (Latin for 'under' or 'beneath') plus 'space' — the mathematical sense dates to 19th/20th-century formal mathematics, naming any subset of a vector space that's still a vector space in its own right. Science fiction later borrowed the word for faster-than-light travel through a hidden dimension, but that's a separate, fictional invention riding on the same sturdy prefix.
- definition
- A vector subset closed under addition and scalar multiplication
- zero vector
- Must always contain the origin, no exceptions
- trivial example
- Just the zero vector alone counts
- sci-fi cousin
- Faster-than-light travel shortcut, physics optional