I have a very basic question: What is the 4th dimension. Theoretically, what would it be like to travel there? Would a person have to leave their body behind to travel there?
Time or Spatial Many theoretical physicists refer to time as the fourth dimension. From the fourth dimension, all time would exist simultaneously. A ball would be a tube going back to the moment it became a ball, and perhaps exend into the many paths of entropy from the current moment in time onward. It would only make sense that a being in the fourth dimension could distinguish the present from the past. Since entropy does exist, predicting the future is a matter of looking at the range of probability. But, since one thing leads to another, there is a limit on this projection. The other fourth dimension considered is spatial. Every side of a three dimensional object from the fourth spatial dimension would be visible to a 4D observer. In 3D, we are aware of only a small subset of 3D reality. We consider 2D a very simplistic space. From the 4th spatial dimension, our 3D world would be rendered very simplistic to the 4D observer, while we could only view a mere cross-section of the 4D being. If we try to imagine each and every 3D object as an open space we can observe through in and through out, we start to get a glimpse of how difficult it is for us to conceptualize this existence. We see the 3D surface, and we understand the concept of 3 dimensional space. The 4D being would be free to move through our Universe, probably undetected, while observing us in complete detail.
Read "The Fourth Dimension" by Rudy Rucker. You can make some comparisons: We look at a flat square on a paper. We can see its interior. If the square is big enough, we can step inside it without touching its perimeter. If our finger goes thru the paper, the square first sees a dot when we touch the paper, then ever-increasing circles as the tip goes farther in. A 4D person would have x-ray vision, be able to do surgery without cutting the skin or rob a bank vault that was closed, and his 4D finger would appear as first a dot then ever-increasing spheres as it intersected our 3D space. Make a "4D" cube - use toothpicks and playdoh or straws and thread. Make first a big cube then a little cube inside it. Then connect each vertex of the big cube with a straw to the nearest vertex of the little cube. Now, if you can imagine all FOUR straws going into one vertex are ALL at right angles to each other, you will be imagining a 4D cube.
The term "4th dimension" is misleading. There are only three spatial dimensions. Some string theories demand as many as 11 dimensions, but these extra dimensions appear not to exist in experiments. In relativity theory, an "event" is a point in space together with a point in time. For example, "your office at 5 pm" and "your dinner table at 7 pm" are two different events, with different time and space components. An event is represented mathematically as a four-dimensional vector (t, x, y, z). Most of relativistic mechanics operates upon such four-dimensional vectors (sometimes just called four-vectors). As a result, it can be said that "time is the fourth dimension," but time really isn't anything like the three spatial dimensions. It just happens that the mathematics of four-vectors are nice and tidy, compared to the alternative of dealing with time and space separately. In summary, there is no "fourth dimension." There are three spatial dimensions and one time dimension. Time and space dimensions mean very different things physically, but sometimes they are combined into four-vectors for the sake of simplifying mathematics. - Warren
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Even if time isn't considered a dimension, there is no reason to believe there isn't one, only that we are incapable of seeing in that direction or moving in it. However, time being the fourth dimension works well to explain things, and it probably is the fourth dimension. Case in point: All galaxies are receeding from each other, and the farther away they are from each other the faster they are going. Are we to believe that the "farthest from the center" ones were created first and given the highest initial velocity, and then they SOMEHOW accelerate as they travel? No. Rather, picture inkdots on a balloon. As you blow the balloon up, the dots farthest from each other receed the fastest since the surface expansion is additive over distance. Now raise the picture one dimension. ALL OF 3 SPACE is the surface of this 4D balloon, there is NO center in 3 space (and no absolute frame of reference), and the farthest galaxies receed the fastest. Although this is only a picture, it is the only consistent view we have that makes sense of the many pieces of data we have to work with. Among other things, it helps to explain why the 3 degree kelvin background radiation is so evenly spread out that any direction you look it is the same. Here's a question that has bothered me awhile: If we could deflate the balloon, or travel into its interior, would we go back in time? Okay, chroot, now's the time for you to call me a crackpot, chew me up, and spit me out. I probably won't even argue this time, I just put all this in here for those who are interested.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I'm not going to do that. The surface of the balloon is a positively-curved 2D space. The third dimension, into which it is curved, does not exist in the 2D space. If you extend this picture by one dimension, you'll have a positively-curved 3D (not 4D) surface. You might say a curved 3D space implies an external fourth dimension -- but it's a spatial dimension, not a time dimension. In any event, that external spatial dimension is not part of the space at all -- it's just used by us humans to help visualize the space. - Warren
Okay, granted. What I'm saying is that, since we are moving through this fourth dimension, there are multiple pictures of our 3D universe inside the balloon. You could say that travelling from an inner to an outer picture is moving forward in time. Entropy increases, etc. Time wouldn't be a part of our spacial experience (its not) but it is a part of the structure of the universe, since the universe is "bent into a sphere" in that direction, exactly like the way space is bent by gravity or acceleration, only more. We observe time by existing in "shells" progressively more distant to the 4D center. Perhaps we are still alive yesterday, and if we could go into the balloon along the same world-line, we would have no memory of today's events. Perhaps it wouldn't matter which world-line you followed, since entropy would reverse.... speculation, I know. But the point is, we remember the past because of constraints of entropy and biochemistry and all, maybe if we understood 4D geometry better we could create something that "remembered" its future until its destruction.
On the other hand, you feel that this balloon can't exist since time isn't a spacial dimension. Why isn't it? Because we can't see and move in that direction. But we are moving in that direction - forward, 1second per second. I know this doesn't prove anything, but it raises reasonable doubt.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
let me clarify So am i right when I say that the 4th dimension is a space where all time is experienced simultaneously (past, future and presetn)?
Re: Re: let me clarify Hi Warren: So, do you disagree with the first response by FLUIDITY to the question I posed? And if so why? Thanks : )
Possibly because time isn't a place. There are three spatial dimensions and one of time. Like Warren said, events are locations at a certain time. To be more precise.. you could describe any place on Earth in 4 coordinates. (x, y, z, t) Meet me at 3rd st and B st (x and y), on the 4th floor (z), at 3pm (t). voltron
3rd St and B Ave. -- you'll get the poor guy looking for an intersection of 3rd St and Bth St which isn't likely to happen. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I believe time is considered the 'temporal' fourth dimension. And, correct me if I'm wrong, light is considered a vibration of the 5th dimension-I should say that it's a theory.
Actually, IF time is a spacial dimension that we only partly experience because our consciousness and mobility is restricted to the 3D SURFACE of a 4D balloon, THEN a being that was able to see 4D spacially WOULD see the past, present, and future at the same "time". "time" here is the paradox. Would he/she have another dimension that he/she called "time"? because without it, that being would be unable to recognize that any perception had occured since it would all be in one instant...just speculation, anyway.
Warren Really? Isn't me that says this. Stephen Hawking says this. So you think you're smarter than him? I've read some of your posts-nada.
Re: Warren Why do people always use this argument: so you think you're smarter than him? Bah. Show me the quote. I'll show you how you're misunderstanding it. By the way, if you'd like to understand ANYTHING about physics, I'd advise that you stay far, far away from his popular books. - Warren
