An attempt to view the fourth dimension

[RonnieThePotato]

I will attempt to explain the fourth dimension.

First we must start at the beginning.

I'd like you to meet a good friend of mine,

Say hello to point.

Here he is! ^

What can't see? I don't blame you, you see, point is invisible!

Point is not even invisible, he is nothing, yet your standing on him!

Point has many friends, they fill up everything. Everything! From you Phone to the Universe (which could be infinite as far as we know)!

Nothing can fit inside point because point is nothing, point is the smallest of the small! Point is dimension zero!

x = n/a y = n/a z = n/a

Points are also the base of all dimensions, for example the second dimension. When points line up with no spaces in between then they make line!

Line is one dimensional, still invisible though. You need at least two dimensions to see something.

x = ? y = n/a z = n/a

When these line up, we get a 2d figure, it can be a triangle, square, circle, you name it!

See? It's just a bunch of lines on top of each other!

x = ? y = ? z = n/a

Now 2d lines up we get 3d!

 Squares on squares...

 

Makes a a three dimensional figure!

So, a 4d fiqure is jus a bunch of 3D figures lined up? Yep!

Here ya go! The 4d cube, aka the tesseract. But how does a cube turn into this? Well here is the net,

 

 

  This is 3D I know but we can't see four dimensionally, this is the closest we can get to see 4d.

I wonder what it must be like being a four dimensional creature!

Lets figure that out too!

Let's  start at the beginning, 0D, well remember that I said nothing can fit in point? Let's go to 1D.

1D creatures can move left and right, A to B, they can't see at all though, they see in 0D so they are blind. Time for 2d!

2D creatures can move up down left and right and see one dimensionally.

 

3d things see in two dimensional like us! Look at your hand it looks 2d, but the only thing that tells you that it is three dimensional is the light, you see the shadows! You can also flip your hand and see the other side! Let's say a stick was getting farther and farther from you, it looks like it's getting smaller, but let's say the stick was getting bigger as it went farther, you can still tell its farther because of shadow.

now, 4d they can see 3D but how? Well they can see "through" 3D things using the fourth dimension. Lets speak 1d for a moment, let's say there is three points in a row, to get to the middle one, a 1d creature must break one point to get to the middle one, right? A two dimensional creature can use the second dimension to just go around the first point and get the middle dot. A 2d circle has a dot inside it, a 2d creature must break the circle to get the dot, you can remove a 2d dot from a 2d circle without breaking the circle using the third dimension, just go around the circle. A 4d creature can remove a box from a hollow sphere without breaking it using the fourth dimension which we don't know too much of yet.

Lets talk shadows, 3D casts a 2d shadow, 2d casts 1d shadow, 1d casts no shadow, so 4d casts a 3D shadow, and the 3D shadow would cast its own 2d shadow. Yes you can grab a 3D shadow and spin it around and stuff. Another cool thing is, we draw on a 2d surface and we draw 2d things. 4d creatures draw in 3D! No they can't write in the air, air doesn't have  enough friction to rub lead of a pencil, but they write in a 3D surface so through anything 3D, in the middle of a 3D wall, inside some sort of 3D paper, anything! And they can spin their drawing around too! Yep pretty cool huh!

Well I hope you got an idea on the fourth dimension. Oh and the fourth dimension is not time alright, time is in every dimension, I'll just call it the extra dimension. Thanks for viewing!

 

[Darnok]

There are only 3 dimensions and you can measure them. Fourth dimension is just concept invented by us to calculate some things easier.

It is like in Pythagorean theorem, Pythagoras added one more dimension to be able to solve problem (single dimension problem). But his problem should be solvable with just single dimension, since he wanted to calculate length only. Other problems should be solvable with maximum 3 dimensions.

[RonnieThePotato]

1 hour ago, Darnok said:

There are only 3 dimensions and you can measure them. Fourth dimension is just concept invented by us to calculate some things easier.

It is like in Pythagorean theorem, Pythagoras added one more dimension to be able to solve problem (single dimension problem). But his problem should be solvable with just single dimension, since he wanted to calculate length only. Other problems should be solvable with maximum 3 dimensions.

Its all hypothetical, nobody knows if there is a fourth dimension or not, this I wrote the conclusion based on the hypothetical and theoretical knowledge that is known.

Edited August 8, 2016 by RonnieThePotato

[K^2]

Talk about teseract is not complete without discussing its rotation. There are 6 axes of rotation in 4D space. When projected to 3D, three of them look like normal 3D rotations, and the other 3 look like teseract turning inside out in one of three directions. Here is an animation combining both types of rotation.

 

But integer dimensional spaces aren't so bad. It's fractional dimensions that will drive you bonkers.

[shynung]

58 minutes ago, K^2 said:

But integer dimensional spaces aren't so bad. It's fractional dimensions that will drive you bonkers.

Fractional...dimensions?

[insert_name]

The fourth dimension is time

[Darnok]

3 minutes ago, insert_name said:

The fourth dimension is time

Can you show this "time"?

[Nikolai]

6 hours ago, shynung said:

Fractional...dimensions?

Yup.  A Koch curve, for example, has ln(4)/ln(3) dimensionality, or roughly 1.26 dimensions.

Here's a PDF version of the paper which brought the idea to the fore: http://users.math.yale.edu/~bbm3/web_pdfs/howLongIsTheCoastOfBritain.pdf

[Green Baron]

Mind-boggling.

Some have these extra math-windings in the cortex and some don't. I don't.

I'll be content with 4 dimensions (+time).

 

[VaPaL]

There's a film that shows this take on dimensions, it's called Flatland, based on the novel of the same name
 

 

There's a math series tha talk about this in one or two eps, when I get home, with you guys want, I will see if I can upload it to my Drive and share with you. It's kind old thought.

[Majorjim!]

We can measure four dimensions and it makes sense in our measurable reality to call 'time' the forth dimension.

 

 

[RonnieThePotato]

The fourth spacial dimension, the hypothetical one I was talking about, and time, a proven dimension that is within every dimension, are different. So the third spacial dimension has three spacial dimensions plus time, another type of dimension. Time is only known as the fourth dimension because we thought of time being a dimension before the thought of the fourth spacial dimension. Time is a dimension, but it is not spacial, every dimension has time. 

[Darnok]

14 hours ago, Majorjim! said:

We can measure four dimensions and it makes sense in our measurable reality to call 'time' the forth dimension.

 

 

How you measure forth dimension?

[Majorjim!]

5 minutes ago, Darnok said:

How you measure forth dimension?

As I wrote we can assume and call the forth dimension time.

 We have a measure of time, sort of.

[SinBad]

But time isnt real...

Its just something our minds made up so that we can make sense of the world around us. The only defenitions we have of time are self referencing. It all comes from our way of splitting the universe into two catagories, 'me' and 'not me'. Things you remember are 'me' things. Things you see now are 'not me' things. Things you speculate may happen are also 'me' things. The 'me' catagory is mostly imaginary, yes it includes your physical body, but any current perception of your body puts it into the 'not me' catagory. The only concept you really have of it is remembering it and imagining that you will retain it. Time is our minds way of reconciling what we remember with what we currently see. Without a mental construct of time, we couldnt speculate on the future. The rabbit was there, it is now there, so in the future it will probably be there too. Without that, there is no distinction in our minds between past and present, and no scope for speculation. An infant has not created a concept of time yet, which is why 'peek a boo' is so entertaining. As far  as the baby is concerned, recolection and observation are concurrent. Meaning the baby remembers you while it can see you. When you cover your face you disappear. As its not observing you, its not remembering you. When you reveal yourself, observation begets recolection and you exist again. The baby has no catagories of me/not me. It only has 'is'. At some point it can anticipate your reapearance, the child has defined you as 'not me' and can now remember something without observing it, and speculate about unobserved events.

 

[Green Baron]

But OP wrote that the fourth dimension is a spacial dimension. Time ist extra, sotosay. That is (edit: i was referring to @Majorjim!'s interpretation of the 4th dimension) somehow contradictory for a poor non-physicist :-)

It can be measured quite accurately, no ? Aren't velocity and distance derived from the measurement of time ?

 

Edited August 9, 2016 by Green Baron

[RonnieThePotato]

Time is very real, we just made up units of time, such as seconds, minutes, and so on. Time allows change. If time was simply an illusion, everything would be static. Time lets us move, lets us think, lets anything change in any ways. If time were to stop right now, you would be in the exact position you are now, your cells will be motionless, your brain would be thinking on what you are thinking right now. If time never existed, planets, stars, even the Big Bang wouldn't happen because simply nothing can change. Time is very real.

[Green Baron]

Of course it's real or there wouldn't be concurrency and succession.

But why the assumption of the fourth spacial dimension. Is it observable, directly or indirectly in nature or what does it simplify / explain ?

What is the difference of the proposed 4th dimension to for example the eleven dimensional m-theory, supergravity, whatever ... (not that i knew what i'm talking about here :-)) ? Just a mathematical playground or practical usefullness ?

Layperson's questions, sorry ...

Edit: oh, cancel the question, i just read your second post @RonnieThePotato.

 

 

Edited August 9, 2016 by Green Baron

[Darnok]

2 hours ago, Majorjim! said:

As I wrote we can assume and call the forth dimension time.

 We have a measure of time, sort of.

We have no way to measure time as fourth dimension.

All we are measuring is movement/change of location of objects in 3 dimensions and this change we are calling "time". You can make any calculation you need without this human invented dimension called "time".

[Green Baron]

Call it dimension or not but few measurements are as accurate as the measurement of time. Time (s) is a base SI-unit. Other units depend on it.

I don not understand what makes you claim that we have no way to measure time but i hope you'll enlighten me.

Edit: yes calculate a speed or acceleration without time.

Edited August 9, 2016 by Green Baron

[Darnok]

27 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Call it dimension or not but few measurements are as accurate as the measurement of time. Time (s) is a base SI-unit. Other units depend on it.

I don not understand what makes you claim that we have no way to measure time but i hope you'll enlighten me.

Edit: yes calculate a speed or acceleration without time.

You don't measure time, if you think otherwise please enlighten me and tell me how to measure time

Funny thing is that you are measuring speed of object to calculate time and then you are using speed of first object to calculate speed of second object

What is speed? You can calculate change of location of object using vectors. And change in movement vector (acceleration) you can also measure without time.

[Green Baron]

Enlightenment: (light is measured through time as well, radiation -> frequency).

200 years ago time was measured by counting from the beginning of the day on (culmination of a star). I'd say a more direct measurement is hardly possible. Today they are bit more subtle by counting the vibes of a caesium atom. This is a direct measurement. And once you have the time (as a base and before all) you get the rest: a distance for example since the last *time*. Speed is a derivative of time and distance, not the other way round.

Of course you can rearrange the formula, when you have measured a distance and you know your speed you have a time. But that speed in the formula needed time before to be calculated.

And it's the same with frequencies, acceleration, force, weight. They all depend on time, without time, no reality sotosay :-)

Ok ?

 

20 minutes ago, Darnok said:

What is speed? You can calculate change of location of object using vectors. And change in movement vector (acceleration) you can also measure without time.

Show me how pls., eager to learn :-)

Edit: i am not very friendly to the op by hijacking his thread ... i do apologize and kindly ask a mod to move this diskussion to an own thread if he/she thinks that should be done.

[Darnok]

2 hours ago, Green Baron said:

 

And it's the same with frequencies, acceleration, force, weight. They all depend on time, without time, no reality sotosay :-)

Then you can see how far we went in wrong direction? We added just one virtual dimension to make science simpler and today people can't imagine basic things without time (human invented dimension).

 

2 hours ago, Green Baron said:

200 years ago time was measured by counting from the beginning of the day on (culmination of a star). I'd say a more direct measurement is hardly possible.

You think that is measurement of time? This way you measure distance that your body travel in space.
As the starting and end point of the measurement, you are using a line of sight of the sun.

Edited August 9, 2016 by Darnok

[ThiccRocketScientist]

On 8/8/2016 at 4:07 AM, Darnok said:

There are only 3 dimensions and you can measure them. Fourth dimension is just concept invented by us to calculate some things easier.

It is like in Pythagorean theorem, Pythagoras added one more dimension to be able to solve problem (single dimension problem). But his problem should be solvable with just single dimension, since he wanted to calculate length only. Other problems should be solvable with maximum 3 dimensions.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. We are living in the fourth dimension, but it isn't ideal. It is like an ant on a conveyor belt: It cannot do much to disturb it, and as hard as it may try, it may only change its path a few millimeters. It is constantly moving on that conveyor belt. The fourth dimension isn't parallel to our three changeable dimensions, however. It is 90 degrees from it.

I don't like the illustration of that tesseract, because we cannot really imagine it. You can, however, find the area. For a line with dimensions of 4,  4 to the power of 1. For a square? 4 squared. For a cube, 4 cubed, and for a tesseract... 4 tesseracted, I guess, which is to the power of four.

In fact, if aliens do exist, it might be very likely that they are higher dimensional than us, perhaps fifth, or above.

 

~John

[benzman]

Time is what stops everything from happening all at once.