4th dimension is 'time', without which none of the other 3 can be perceived.

 

True, but time isn't a spatial dimension. despite the fact that you need time and motion to exist in physical dimensions, it is still irrelevant since time and motion are both representational dimensions. but yes I do understand what you mean, and in various ways, you are correct.

Adam says:
then they have height and width
Adam says:
Depth is a third-dimensional axis
Adam says:
Length and width*
Adam says:
You said to me that they have a height/depth in respects to our world, equivalent to the height/depth of a string
Adam says:
Okay, I see where you're comin' from in terms of height and depth being perpendicular.
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
let's try and come to an agreement here because I’m tired and I want to go to bed and I do not want another useless argument, so lets try and work it yeah? Let’s 'combine' your explanation with mine, let's make this an agenda.
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
I'm just going to get this over and done with. Flatland does have height, yes, true, you cannot exist without that dimension. But understand that Flatland has only one surface with 0 height. this makes the dimension 'height' non-existant since height is measured with +5 (i.e. five inches above surface) or -6 (6 inches below surface). do you know what I mean?
Adam says:
but you can’t have a negative measurement
Adam says:
6 inches below the surface of something
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
let me speak, then you answer yeah? make this a pattern, each time I speak, I will 'lean' my explanation to yours, (sort of agreeing with you slightly to "bend" what I mean to what you have in mind) if you do the same with me, then we WILL reach a climax, a one answer ok?
Adam says:
is just 6 inches in the opposite direction beginning from the same place you started when you counted the +5
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
okay. So, in terms of movement, if you were to walk forward, you'd be...executing a positive movement..like 5+ right?
Adam says:
yes.
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
Cool. and...same if you walked backwards..you'd be executing ..say -7...?
Adam says:
no
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
alright, why not?
Adam says:
you'd be walking a measurement of 7, say metres, just in the opposite direction. if you were round and had no forward or backward, like if you couldn’t see or something, then every direction would be a positive movement. you can't have a negative measurement in the physical world negative numbers only exist in the theoretical world
Adam says:
it'd be like trying to travel slower than 0 mph in a car
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
okay, for understanding sakes (since I am useless with words) let's..pretend that when you walk forward, you are pursuing a positive movement, and when you walk backward (in which u remain to face forward - obviously) it is a negative measurement. k?
Adam says:
for the sake of argument
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
thank you.
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
now....say if I walked -6 I’d be moving backwards at 6mph. yeah?
Adam says:
yeah
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
and +6 is where I’d be moving forward at 6mph
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
this is in terms of motion.
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
yeah?
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
so...if I said I ...was pursuing 0.....what do you think I will be doing?
Adam says:
standing still, obviously
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
exactly! ...so, in essence, I’m no longer using the dimension of depth (lengthwise). even though depth IS there, and I can easily use it whenever I want, I am...theoretically oblivious to length now that I am standing still. Right?
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
remember, still talking in terms of motion
Adam says:
but, using the same principles, you could theoretically not exist since you're not taking into account any of the dimensions
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
existing isn't the same as motion, please try and stay focused, we'll deal with existence later.
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
are you on track with what I am saying?
Adam says:
but, even in terms of motion, you're not taking into account the height or width, as well as the depth
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
I don't need to take length in account for when I am not even using it. taking it into account IS logical, because you believe that it's there - but pretend that you are the sort of being that only trusts things when you see it happen, and don't trust things when it's not happening.
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
So if you stopped, and you were suddenly transported (star trek style lol) into a world of length, you wouldn't notice (remember, not in terms of existence, I’m talking in terms of 'motion)
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
sorry I said that wrong lol
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
I meant, a world *without* length
Adam says:
you mean if I stood in a hallway looking down it
Adam says:
and denied the existence of the "length" (depth) of the corridor?
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
you're again taking in terms of existence, motion is a representational dimension (this is the only way I can try and show you what I mean)
Adam says:
that was an analogy
Adam says:
in the analogy if I were taken into a world where depth didn’t exist, I would still be ignorant to the fact that the hallway did or did not possess a "length" (depth)
Adam says:
but I’d still have the width and height of my body
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
...let me give you a better analogy.
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
we need to try and stick with motion, you went into an existence analogy there..
Adam says:
I know that.
Adam says:
but if motion is 0, and motion can't possibly have a width or height, and since it isn’t moving, the depth isn’t there either, so it doesn’t exist
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
just hold on.
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
keep this a pattern.
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
if you distinguished motion by looking down, seeing the floor move past you. and...you decided to stop moving. the floor beneath you has also stopped moving. if you remained looking down - still - and suddenly, without you knowing are being aware of it, you were transported to a world WITHOUT motion, same floor, same texture - everything is the exact same despite the fact that the world you've just
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
been transported to, has no motion
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
- you wouldn't be able to tell the difference
Adam says:
yeah
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
unless you tried to move forward.
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
agreed?
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
just tell me if you agree, don't digress...yet
Adam says:
yes, it makes a lot more sense when you just say it like that, the last one you said didn’t make much sense because of the confusion of the different axis
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
motion is not proportion. yeah? you already know that. Motion is pursuing a direction you are facing, and pushing whatever force you are on (e.g. the floor) in the opposite direction you desire to go into. (obviously you need to exist before you can utilise motion - but that is completely irrelevant on the point I am making, but still had to be mentioned to ensure you are following me)
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
walk forward? and the world goes backwards - perpendicular.
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
I think I told you about that ages ago
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
so far, can you follow me?
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
are you even..
Adam says:
yes I can follow you
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
cool. Now....try and put that analogy, into proportion, so the same example is used, but the topic is no longer motion, it is proportion (the space of universe you take in order to exist) Remember that proportion is like motion, but it is not moving, your body is using length height and depth, but not motionally, you are using it constantly - and non-constantly, at the same time
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
(say now if you have lost me, if not, let me keep talking)
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
so the same analogy. if you distinguished height, by simply 'existing' (by looking down, you have just proven to your brain that your legs, are "beneath" you - hence, height exists in your realm)
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
but let's...just say that you..didn't look down or up, (taking in account that you are looking in a direction where you cannot see above ur eyes, or below urs eyes - oh and also pretend ur in a white room)
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
like how you distinguished motion before, and couldn't once the floor was no longer moving, if you could no longer see above or below you (even things close to ur vision, like ur nose - not just distant things, like ur feet) and you were suddenly transported (Star trek style!!) to a world [[in this case, a white room]] with no height AND you didn't (and from here on, 'couldn't) look up or down,
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
you would not notice the difference
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
do you agree with this?
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
try and imagine...please
Adam says:
I agree with it for the vast majority of it, but the fundamental principle of the no height I don’t agree with
/\/\att: The 4th Dimensi۞n says:
ok. I vow to my motto as I said before, if someone remains to disagree, I will go no further than to try and display evidence of analogies, logic, and math (read flatland, the math is somewhere in there)

Thus, I will go no further. Let's just speak nothing of it from now on... there's no point, right? anyways...I’m sorta tired. You wanna come up to mine this week..?


As you can see, trying to tell an opionated person about the 4th dimesnion is as simple as dressing up a horse and asking it to play Barbie with you.

What a load of esoteric drivel.

All '4' dimensions are mathematical concepts.....physical existence requires all 4 for human perception beyond the hypothetical.

The first 3 are conceptual, but with the fourth you have actuality.

Hum, imagine those 2D people placed on a flexible surface, say a sort of trampoline.  Now, put a very heavy ball in the middle of the trampoline. The ball would cause the trampoline to sink down in its middle, and all the 2D people would slide down towards the ball, pulled by gravity.
Now, what would these people perceive?  They would see a dot, stretching into a line, appearing. Then they wouold feel themselved being pulled towards it.  How would they explain it?  The most scientific among them would probably come up with a theory about how larger objects attract the smaller objects. Objects with a larger mass attract objects with smaller masses... Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Not unlike planets and moons.
What if there IS a 4th spacial dimension and that gravity isn't what we think it is. -)

Wow that's impressive, Paxx. It makes sense doesn't it? For all those that have read much about the 4th dimension and are starting to 'visualise':

Things that suggest the 4th dimension IS there.

- Have you ever considered how a four-dimensional being would appear to you if it suddenly came into your room?
I think they would resemble flesh-coloured balloons constantly changing in size. We would see disconnected blobs of flesh some attached to claws, teeth, lips, eyes, or hair. Let me tell you why.
Think of it this way. Consider a two-dimensional world resembling a sheet of paper. How would you appear to the inhabitants of such a world if you tried to interact with with them? The 2-D creatures would only see cross-sections of you as you intersected their universe. Your finger would look like a flat disc that grew in size as you pushed it through their world. Your five fingers might look like five separate circles. They would just see irregular shapes with skin boundaries as you entered their world. Similarly, a hyperbeing who lived in the fourth dimension would have a cross-section in our space that looked liked a bunch of skin blobs.
A 4-D being would be a god to us. It would see everything in our world. It could even look inside your stomach and remove your breakfast without cutting through your skin, just like you could remove a dot inside a circle by moving it up into the third dimension, perpendicular to the circle, without breaking the circle.

A hyperbeing can effortlessly remove things before your very eyes, giving you the impression that the objects simply disappeared. The hyperbeing can also see inside any 3-D object or life form, and if necessary remove anything from inside. The being can look inside our intestines, or remove a tumor from our brain without ever cutting through the skin. A pair of gloves can be easily transformed into two left or two right gloves. And 3-D knots fall apart in the hands of a hyperbeing, much as a 2-D knot (a loop of string lying on a plane) can easily be undone by a 3-D being simply by lifting the end of the loop up into the third dimension.

Walking though walls... being hidden from... what do you immediately think of when I say what these hyperbeings can do, Ghosts? correct.

I believe ghosts are not dead people, I believe they are hyperbeings, only taking on the form of transparent humans because their 4 dimensional proportion has been sliced off by the 3 dimensional limits.

- Paxx's point about gravity, think about it, why is gravity there? we know what the effects are, but how does it truly work? why? where is the force's origin? why does the mass pull objects toward us?





imagine that the gridline surface is our 3 dimensional space, anything above or below that surface is 4 dimensional space, or tetraspace. the weight of the 4 dimensional sphere is pushing down. This raises the fact that gravity is also existant in the 4th dimension, and the 5th, and the 6th (gravity may well be the key evidence to higher dimensions - what cannot be explained with us may be explained with "them")

- the forces of the 4th dimension can also be responsible for strange things that go on domestically. Ever wondered how a complicated tangle in wires etc happen by themselves? you don't seem to analyse it too much since you decide that maybe you don't remember how it happened.
If you placed 2 bugs on a flat piece of paper (bugs are the closest beings to Flatlanders since they are not familiar with up or down, above or below) and then folded the piece of paper together, and scrunched the paper up, the bugs would not 'see' the effects but could 'feel' the paper coming down on them. they would be feeling the mysterious external forces plunging from the 3rd dimension. Similarly, we cannot see these forces, but would see the effects of them. I believe that tangles are resulting the external forces of the 4th dimension.

This is what makes me truly believe that the 4th dimension exists, and that there are hyperbeings living out their lives. what's more interesting is that since hyperobjects are causing gravitational effects in our dimension, this proves that things in the 4th dimension can/are interact(ing) with our dimension, 4 Dimensional people can interact with us. Or perhaps they have been for millions of years.

Questions like these could be answered.
Is God a 4 dimensional being?
Are aliens from the 4th dimension?
What would a being who could move in the fourth spatial dimension look like to us? Would these beings have teeth? If these beings evolved just like us, how would they look to us? Would they have internal organs like our own?

Would the beings look liked bags of skin or be more exotic?

What are the chances that we could learn to communicate at all with a 4-D extraterrestrial?

As a consequence of their access to a fourth dimension, what powers would seemingly amazing powers would they have? What would their sex acts be like? How might they think and act? How might we search for them?

If we encountered them, we would find they can perform levitation, bloodless surgery, disappear in front of our eyes, walk through walls. Nothing would be hidden from them, no matter how hard we tried to hide. Certainly if such a being was observed in biblical times, He would be considered a God with many characteristics of omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence. How would an encounter today affect our world and religion? What is the religious significance?

Would we be able to hear the speech of a 4-D being inches away in the fourth dimension? How would sound work? What would the being sound like using 4-D vocal cords? What happens to photons in four dimesions? For example, how do 4-D beings see? We don't seem to be "losing" photons into the fourth dimension, so I'm not clear how 4-D creatures would use them to see us or themselves...

Man I really want a hypercube wallpaper

..The most scientific among them would probably come up with a theory about how larger objects attract the smaller objects. Objects with a larger mass attract objects with smaller masses ...

Actually, it works both ways. Both objects attract each other. ANY mass will exert an acceleration on ANY other mass. That force is F = G·m1·m2/r², where G is the universal gravitational constant, the two masses are m1 and m2 and r is the distance between their centers (assuming we're talking about two bodies completely separated from each other).

Of course, the force m1 exerts on m2 is proportional to m1/m2 and therefore much smaller if m1 is much smaller. The acceleration that m1 imposes on m2 can be calculated from Newton's second law of motion, F = m·a. Therefore, F = m2·a = G·m1·m2/r². Dividing both sides of the 2nd equality by m2 results in a = G·m1/r², a being the acceleration m1 imposes on m2.

As for the rest of the discussion, I'm afraid this would have to have been a Friday night, about 20 years ago, after studies were done (and we had "fired up" the "DOOBIE" Brothers, wink-wink, nudge-nudge) before I'd have had much joy with what Jafo so appropriately labeled as esoterica.

I hope you get your wallpaper, Gizzimo.

BTW, last time I checked, most physicists involved in String Theory hypothesized a total of 11 dimensions. I could be out of date on that though. Maybe things have progressed where it's even more...



[Message Edited]
[Message Edited]
[Message Edited]

I will try to understand.

Later.....

this is confusing...

How could there be mass in a 2-d world? Doesn't mass require the 3rd dimension?

/me IS a HyperCube.... look >>>>>>

The 3d dimensional forces would have effects on a 2-d world. they just wouldn't perceive it as gravity. Then again, this all depends on whether or not dimensions can interact with each other. Gravity, from what we observe, is descendable. Meaning that if it exists in the 4th dimension, then it exists in the 3rd dimension, thus it exists in the 2nd dimension and so on.

5th dimension were good - never heard the other four...

How many dimensions are there? I once read something that said there were only 99 of them I think...


The 4th is confusing enough... maybe come to find out that we live in the 4th dimension and failed to realize it (Time is the fourth dimension???) and we should be trying to figure out the fifth.

What are the rules of saying what a dimension is or isn't? Is it a distance only? Only have to do with space or is Time and other elements components of it as well?

Dimensions are mathematical concepts.....some can be measured [4]...others are brain exercises, nothing more...

The fifth dimension has to do with ... OOWW my head hurts ..

joetheblow - physists are unsure how many physical dimensions there are. Various theories predict more than the 3 spacial dimensions we are familiar with though.

Most string theories need at least 8 dimensions for the maths to work, but some of them need up to 15. Non of these have been solidly established as yet though, and it's all right at the cutting edge of science so expect the theories to change yet.

I think the more esoteric theories requiring more than 15 dimensions are mostly on the fringe at the moment - but I don't think higher numbers of dimensions are ruled out even by the leading theories. The theories tend to need "at least x dimensions" rather than predicting an exact number.

Jafo - not necessarily...if string theory were to be correct, then it would mean there are more than 3 spacial dimensions, but that the higher ones are "wrapped up tightly" such that we don't perceive them....and no, I can't imagine what that means exactly, but that's what Hawkins etc assure us

BTW - string theory is currenly in a bit of crisis, but even the other challenging theories tend to predict real higher dimensions too.

Personnaly, I think all physists have fallen into a mass psychosis, like all the philosophers of old who spent years trying to work out how manay angels could dance on the head of a pin - I'm waiting for some youngster to come along and really explain it all, like the Emporors New Clothes
[Message Edited]

I think we live in all of those dimentions and just don't know about it.

Cool huh?

Don't mean to brag... but I don't suppose anyone has started on a Hypercube wallpaper yet...?

#23 by gizzimo - 4/2/2004 4:10:15 PM Yeah it is very cool. That's why I've been fascinated by it for years. Check it out though, (I know it sounds pathetic and weird,) I can understand and visualise the 4th dimension so well that I actually feel confined by the 3 dimensions I exist in now. Whew.I don't know about that one buddy!

awww give him a break
this is really facinating stuff here
And he is right
We ARE confined to the 3rd demension

#44 by gizzimo - 4/7/2004 9:24:25 PM Don't mean to brag..

Don't you mean "nag" ???

[Message Edited]

How could there be mass in a 2-d world? Doesn't mass require the 3rd dimension?

I'm the Adam that gizzimo is quoting and the above quote was the exact thing I was trying to make him aware of, which he was ignoring. My point was that in a 3D point of view, the second dimension would have no mass. What wasn't made clear was that later on, my point was what was trying to be told to me from Matt. I never disagreed with the concept of a 2D world from inside that world and, despite being called unimaginative, on the grounds that my point wasn't being listened to, it would seem, I could imagine what it would be like in flatland from the moment it was told to me. Since This wouldn't have been made clear by anyone else, I thought I'd do it myself, and remove any thoughts that I'm stupidly unimaginative.

i just wanted to say, this is some very cool stuff. i enjoy reading about it.

INDEED THIS IS AN INTERESTING TOPICI CREATED AN ACCOUNT B/C I WANTED TO RESPOND TO THIS POST.

Hum, imagine those 2D people placed on a flexible surface, say a sort of trampoline. Now, put a very heavy ball in the middle of the trampoline. The ball would cause the trampoline to sink down in its middle, and all the 2D people would slide down towards the ball, pulled by gravity.Now, what would these people perceive? They would see a dot, stretching into a line, appearing. Then they wouold feel themselved being pulled towards it. How would they explain it? The most scientific among them would probably come up with a theory about how larger objects attract the smaller objects. Objects with a larger mass attract objects with smaller masses... Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Not unlike planets and moons.What if there IS a 4th spacial dimension and that gravity isn't what we think it is. -)

Very interesting. In response, I think gravity is more dependant on mass density than actual dimensions itself. In your excellent example (I could actually visualize the situation on the first pass through the paragraph), science leads us to believe that the mass of the bowling ball is what caused the trampoline to sinknot the actual size or dimension of the bowling ball. What if you had placed an air-filled balloon of the same size on the trampoline (assuming it stayed in place and did not blow away)the trampoline would not sink and the people would not come up with the same conclusion. The mass of an object is the sum of all the smallest building blocks (as far as we know, quarks and leptons at this point) in that objectand a quark has some volume.

BUT, in your defensesingularities... For those who don't know, singularities (in space, the essence of a black hole) is a point with infinate density. One could describe the equation as

density = b/a ,limit (a->0), limit (b->infinity).

We have observed black holes (light and matter being pulled of a black hole / star binary pair) but as far as Hawkings idea bout density going to infinity... I'm not expert but I would be more prone to saying that the matter is going into a 4th diminsion then being packed into a decreasingly small volume.

A 4-D being would be a god to us. It would see everything in our world. It could even look inside your stomach and remove your breakfast without cutting through your skin, just like you could remove a dot inside a circle by moving it up into the third dimension, perpendicular to the circle, without breaking the circle

Interesting as well. I think that for a 2D world and a 3D world to co-exist in the same "space", the unity "height" diminsion of the circle that flatlanders would perceive in the 2D world would seem to me to be defined for all height in the 3D world... from -infinately to positive infinately in the 3rd diminsion this would appear as an infinately long cylindar in the 3D world. This is not intuitive. I ask you to consider that we only can define a 2D circle but in the tangible world, they can only exist in our mind or on screen. Draw a circle on paper. It appears to be 2D, no doubt, but the boundries of the circle are defined by the ink bled into the paper and the paper does have some thickness. So for the circle / dot examplelet the dot actually be a flatlander. in the 2D world he is contained by the circle. for a flatlander to be contained by the circle in the 3D world and him not notice the 3rd diminsion, either the flatlander and the circle is infinately tall (a tube and infinately long flatlander throughout the universe) or the exact oppositethe flatlander and containing circle cease to be in the 3D world.

So what am I saying? I am saying that everything we perceive outside only exists for diminsions of 3 or greater. a straight line, what we would call 1-D, actually is N-D where N is the number of actual existing diminsions, if N is even a static integer. Say the line is measured in length, then the diminsions of the line are the length, L, and one (for unity's sake) for every other diminsion that applies at that particular instant.

I also could argue that all of the measurements, M, of all other diminsions (width, depth, jitch...) could be defined as the limit of M approaching 0.

All this rambling to say that an object with the value of 0 for any of N spacial diminsions would actually imply that object did not exist.

Wow...

i think i understand what you're saying.. so we physically see the universe goes on forever because it is really shaped in a dimension that we can not perceive?