imagine that you are a fish.
you are 4 inchs tall, and you have lived your entire life in a pool that is four inches deep.
you only know 2 dementions, forward and backwards, and left and right.
you are happy.
you have no idea of the concept of up and down, it is a subject devoid in your mind.
one day, a human reaches into your pool, and lifts you out.
you see MANY wonderous things, including DEPTH, for the first time in your life.
you are dumped back into your two dememtional world, after a very short time, to think about what you have seen.
you are hard pressed to prosess what you have just seen, as you have no way of refrencing it.


this is a what if.

heres another one.

what if *somthing* were to pick you up, and stick you in the FOURTH demention for a moment.

what would it look like, and what IS it?

have fun sleeping!!!:D

Well I suppose for us to step outside of our 3D world we would loose the ability to distinguish what can and cannot be touched. In our 3D world we know to grab a door handle and pull it backward or push forward. We also know to walk on the ground which is always beneath us. Even when we are several thousand feet in the air, we are still ruled by the measure of gravity, that is whatever solid object contains us at the time. So if we were taken out of that realm we would be able to pass through objects or float into the air. We could also pass through water with great ease. Our cells would no longer be contained, and nothing would hold us together. So we would almost be apparitions. I think also this fourth dimension you speak of is where we all go when we die. And there is where you find your ex-girlfreinds, your lost car keys, your virginity and all the money you lost on the tracks.

The fourth dimension is time. The first three are the x, y, z coordinates (horizontal, vertical, depth). The next is time.

So we're in it and living it. :)

But remember, if you live in the Andes mountains its moving slower by ~5 microseconds a year relative to sea level. :)

I agree with FunClown there, we have the fourth Dimension of time, that is why all of those Sci-Fi movies refer to the Fifth Dimension......

Naw fourth dimension is normal...I saw a picture once of a 4 dimensional cube...wish I still had it...

But we have all experienced time. The only way we would go fourth dimension is if we defeated time by either skipping past it or reversing the process of time. In other words, Time Travel.

http://www.mgkelly.com/pix/ANIMATED-MG-IN-TIME-MACHINE.gif)

They are correct, the fourth dimension is time.

It's like this, lets say we had an absolute grid on the entire planet, and i gave you the location of where I am, but i only gave you the x,y, and z coordinates. Say you immediately go to those coordinates, i might be there. But go there in 2 hours and you quite possibly will not find me. In one day i guarantee i will have moved.

So time is actually a very important dimension. :D

Maybe a Fourth dimention is time. If we experiance a fourth dimention we might be able to move forward and backward in time. Some people may say im speaking nonsense but to me, it seems to make sense.

Originally posted by Lost Welshman
Maybe a Fourth dimention is time. If we experiance a fourth dimention we might be able to move forward and backward in time. Some people may say im speaking nonsense but to me, it seems to make sense.

:eyeraise: Um.......did you read the other responses? The fourth dimension IS time.............

I think the fourth demention would be like a giant timeline, all time all places spread out right before you. You could step from one "frame" into another. We do experience time, but in the third demention, time processes--everything has a beginning and an ending, and that second that just passed while you were reading these words, it's lost forever to us, and the time ahead of us doesn't exist either. But in the fourth demention, all time would just be. Like a person in the third dimention looking down at someone in the second dimention can see everything on that two dimentional world, but the inhabitant of the second dimention can only see a small part of it, so we can only see a small part of time and someone in the demention above us would be able to see all of it. I suggest everyone read a book called Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott, it explains this concept in much more depth than I can here ;)

Originally posted by FunClown
The fourth dimension is time. :)



Yes Yes Yes, if you had asked the worlds leading theoretical physicist about the 4th dimension back in the 70s, they would say we only experience 3 dimensions.

But it is now clearly understood that experiencing time is experiencing the 4th dimension.

So technically we have always moved in 4 dimensions, we just have only become aware of it. I wonder how many other dimensions we will eventually realize we can experience.

yeah, and give it another 30 years and ppl will be saying "you know what those idiots in 2003 believed? that the 4th dimension was time! ph00ls!" ;)

And what if time is not a fourth dimention, but rather a parameter? I dunno, I don't know the equations or evidence that supports either view, so I guess I can't say.

If the fourth dimension is time, then we can either imagine ourselves as a travelor in an ocean of time (or a spiral or line, since we don't have time travel yet...and we might never have it) or you could see yourself as a "slice" of a person living moment to moment... leaving behind countless selves in the past (possibly allowing for into the past time travel).

In a sense though, we're like the dot moving in only one direction with regards to time. We can never go back or stop, only move forward. If we were moving close to or at the speed of light however or we somehow survived entering a wormhole... things get weird.

Yeah, I would have to agree with all this. But here's something to think about. What was the First Dimension?

There is a possibility that you're all overlooking here:

Time, in and of itself, has nothing to do with Age. Age is biology, Age is entropy, Age is a physical process of breaking down. Time, is simply the distance we measure age with. So saying that time even exists, is like saying inches, or meters, or other measuring markers exsist, BUT THEY DON'T. We created them. So, maybe time isn't a DIRECTION we travel in, but a measurement we create to make sense of the physical break down of ourselves and the universe.

Time could be no direction at all, it could be still and motionless. Perhaps it's us, and the physics that make us, that do all the moving and aging on our own.

Time is perhaps merely our way of coping with it.

Speck, you're right: any of our measurements aren't and can not be absolutely accurate but they may be close to it so we could consider them absolute. We can measure oscillations of atom. That's quite accurate for now although it gives some error in some hundred thousands of years.
And People, the answer firstly was about dimention beyond our "normal reality". So it doesn't matter 4th or 5th. Still about time and it's markers:
We can measure light speed and we know that at speed of light time stops. That's a natural marker of time so there're not only artificial markers that we make though the theory was using them to prove this natural marker to exist. And furthermore our whole knowledge of time (and not only time) depends on the existence of these markers.

About feeling 5th dimention.

I think it's not that unstable as was mentioned here. It is something that gives additional properties not excluding those that we already posess like x,y.z,t. I think it's like in Flatland they do have 3rd dimention but it's very small almost abstract (but abstracts exist physically and quantom universal computer is proved to deal with them too). So we all have a bit of 5th dimentional property which is very small. And I was thinking about another thing. We tryed to think about singularities in Parallel Universes Thread as a way of getting into other dimentions. We know that when a massive star collapse into a black the process is not stopped. And it takes whole time of the universe to get through the event horizon to perceive other dimentions (if you want a complete story read it there). But why is that order? We know that getting from x,t to x,y,t time doesn't change it's properties (or it does?), that getting from x,y,t to x,y,z,t time still doesn't change. But getting to other dimention requires for us to perceive time not in one direction but whole spectrum of it so getting out of x,y,z,t requires the next to be x,y,z,f (let's say),±t. So as we 're getting to supercube's 16 terminal points (as perceived in 5 dimentions) in space we need also observe them freely in whole time spectrum. I wonder then what awaits us further.

About multiverse dimention.

Again if time property changes while getting to a higher level of perception what becomes with our multiverse.(please don't kick the multiverse theory again it's just an assumption). What if it too changes it's properties while moving through dimentions. Remember microtubule and quantum collapse within them. What if we were able to perceive multiverse simultaneusly?
It's like being Muad'dib in Dune. A prophet who makes mistakes sometimes (due to random information flow in multiverse) but can perceive time as ±t.
Of course it's sci fi and probably not in our lifetime but what's the better idea?

About Time travel.

For my part I was absolutely convinced in a possibility of such an action through theories of quantum computation. The last theories of which says and proves to us that a virtual reality universal computer working by finite means can create for us and make it interact with us truthfully any possible invironment. That includes time travel. And theories of multiverse eliminate those wrongly assumed paradoxes.

The fourth dimension is NOT time.

Time is only a mathematical measurement of change. Time is only a "perception" of motion. People say that all the dimensions are constant, Motion is also constant. Let's say that you are sitting in a dark room for 10 minutes. It may feel like you've been there for 15 minutes or more, but actually you were there for 10 minutes. It's all perception. If all motion were to stop, it would give the perception of time standing still.

Thus, I believe the Fourth dimension is Motion. After all, you need motion to move forward/backward/left/right/up/down/which ever way.

Motion can even be applied to Einstein's theory of Relativity. If you were to move at light speed, your molecules would be moving so fast that to you-a year would feel like several minutes.

If you were to enter the 4th dimension, I believe everything you would see would be nothing but a blur. But I'm not sure how the 4th dimension would "really" look.

Well, I don't know if this is relevant, but if you were to "enter the 4th dimension", the other 3 dimensions would have to be present, too. I base this on my limited understanding of the whole dimension issue. If you have x, it is one dimension. If you have x,y you have 2, like in Pac-Man. If you have x,y,z you have Quake. Now, let's say that x is horizontal, y is vertical and x is depth. if you take out y, you have horizontal and depth. this would effectively be playing Pac-Man while looking straight across the screen (and that would be hard to play). So now you move the screen so that it is upright so you can eat ghosts. The game is still 2 dimensional, no matter which 2 dimensions you use. (I hope that makes sense.)

Anyway, you can't just "enter the 4th dimension" and leave the other 3 behind. if you only have 3 dimensions (say 1,2,4) it is still 3-D, in spite of the fact that you are using the 4th dimension. Therefore, if we could percieve this 4th dimension (or 5th, or 89th, whichever you prefer) all of the preceding dimensions would have to be included, right? So when we entered the 4th dimension there would be: horizontal, vertical, depth, and the new one, lets call it 4. To enter the 5th dimension you would need horizontal, vertical, depth, and 4. To enter the 89th dimension you would need horizontal, vertical, depth, and 4-89.

Each "dimension" of reality is only an addition to the previous one that makes the whole more complicated. The 4th dimension does the same thing as the 2nd, it complicates things.

Lets say that the first dimension has 5 possibilities for something (I don't care what). In 1-D, there are 5 possibilities, in 2-D there are 25, in 3-D there are 125, and in 4-D there are 625. Now lets assume that there are infinite possibilities in 1-D, would the possibilities increase as more dimensions are added? I can't see how. So then either more dimensions complicate things, or they make no difference in the possible outcomes. In the first case, reality is finite, that seems very unsettling to me...

Anyway, to reiterate the whole thing (again), if you have something that exists in the horizontal, vertical, and 4, it would be no different from horizontal, vertical, and depth.

That is all for today, class.
*Shuts door, waking class*

Very cool post, Solbe. Fascinating yet simple description of it all.

Although I can't say I'm any closer to understanding any of this, lol...

Of course now my mind is reeling with questions, the most prevalent one being: Are there life forms in these other x,y,z, 4,5,6, ad infinitum dimensions? Wouldn't they somehow have to be related, or made up, of us?

Also, what about on the lower dimensions? are there life forms that just exsist on dimension 1, or 2? (Just X, or Y?) What does the universe look like to them...?(ala FLATLAND?)

Well, every life form would have to exist in the first dimension, as I explained above. But for something to exist solely in the 1st or 2nd dimension (or 3rd if you consider our reality to have 4 dimensions) I don't see how we would know, as we could not detect it unless it affected something that exists in the 3rd dimension (or higher).

Hmmm...
*Sits in cave pondering for 40 years and emerges with stunning breakthrough that was discovered years earlier by someone else. Gets haircut*

Originally posted by Rad707_Pandaz
The fourth dimension is NOT time.

Time is only a mathematical measurement of change. Time is only a "perception" of motion. People say that all the dimensions are constant, Motion is also constant. Let's say that you are sitting in a dark room for 10 minutes. It may feel like you've been there for 15 minutes or more, but actually you were there for 10 minutes. It's all perception. If all motion were to stop, it would give the perception of time standing still.

Thus, I believe the Fourth dimension is Motion. After all, you need motion to move forward/backward/left/right/up/down/which ever way.

Motion can even be applied to Einstein's theory of Relativity. If you were to move at light speed, your molecules would be moving so fast that to you-a year would feel like several minutes.

If you were to enter the 4th dimension, I believe everything you would see would be nothing but a blur. But I'm not sure how the 4th dimension would "really" look.


But dimensions aren't really something we EXPERIENCE, they're just something we can observe. I dont really experience the fact that i'm sitting at a certain x,y,z location, I can observe it as well as others can observe it. And i can also observe that I'm sitting here RIGHT NOW, but in 20 minutes i'll be at work.

Dimensions serve no real purpose other than to describe location. And time is an integral part of describing a location.

ET, perhaps you didn't notice but you actually raise a very serious problem. I'd say your point is a bit misleading as it claims to something melancholistical and inevitable like: "We are nothing in this world because how can we tell anything to be real if we never perceive anything directly"

Dimentions are definitly something we EXPERIENCE indirectly. We were even that smart to invent a word for it. The explanation starts like this:

We all live in VR of our senses and percieve everything indirectly. I can imagine only one criterion for reality: response. If something responds, "kicks back" to our senses then it's real. If I'm pushed by curvature of space-time to earth's surface the ground kicks back to my feet and tells me that I stand on something (feel weight of my body through kick back of the ground on me). With that I can tell for sure that ground is real and I'm real for that ground.

(from here I can start Matrix debate... but I won't)

That's why you can tell for sure that you sit on the ground of some x,y,z,t. But that's too simple because you also know that earth is moving around sun, and sun moves around the center of the galaxy, and our galaxy is but a point in a cluster of moving galaxies in an expending universe. So you're always in motion but that doesn't spoil your experience of sitting in some place of a moving object, and these other moving objects in the expanding universe itself doesn't kick back to your senses but that doesn't spoil your image of moving with the expention of the universe. It's all because of fundamental laws of physics that we have. And how they are explained makes us understand and believe them to be real and true

So the clue of this debate is not how can we observe 4th dimention but how can we understand and explain it. And Dimentions not only serve to discribe our location but to discribe our reality which I think to be the goal of science.

From that point of view 4th or other dimentions is not something we should forget and those creatures like Abbot discribes are probable. I could make a pointless guess mimicking the possibility that god could be that creature for instance or creatures, that's why image of god is so diverse.

And motion we can sense only indirectly interpreting (recognizing appropriate response) with our receptors a change in the way photons arrive in our eye lids while watching a cat running away from a dog. But that sense is lost when we follow this movement with our heads if not concentrating on the background image.

And now imagine this extremely small property which we possess of higher dimentions. If it's so abstractly small that we can't experience or manipulate it then how can we tell it to be true and real? Abbot's Flatland is a simple explanation to that

Another explanation I think is: by the same fundamental laws of physics that doesn't restrict it. The only thing we are now dependent on is technology and our one-directional time and of course a better explanation provided by scientists. Because in principle these things are justifyed and now we must test it. But this is my thought I wonder if anyone thinks differently...

I guess that confirms most of my "Motion" hypothesis. Thanks for explaining that.

Motion does determine location, just as time does.

But location in terms of what? and relative to what? can't answer that til we know where we are in terms of distance from the point of space-time origin, and how fast we're going away from it..

In terms of and relative to what we feel comfortable to count. If we want to count a distance from sun to other stars we only count it relatively to the sun and not to the center of the universe. It's irrelevant at the moment. And the speed with which our universe is expanding is approximately known and so is the center of the universe. The only thing we now need to difine location more accurately is better technology.

Location is always relative, it could be easely understood in terms of general/special theory of relativity for examle.

Which is why nowadays we cannot be satisfied with taking a book's word on creation and existance....

To really determine where we are, we must examine our past with a fine tooth comb, and a scientific viewpoint, without religious bias.

We need to advance technologically. We have the manpower (and womenpower) to discover and create. Give it 40 years, and I'm sure we'll know a helluva lot more about the center of the universe, and where we are in relation to it. As much as we consider ourselves destroying-machines, we're thinking-machines to the same extent. We've come a long way, and although we dont know where we can go from here, that's the same thing theyve been thinking for however long it is theyve been thinking that. We can advance, and we will. If there's something out there to be discovered, and we're capable of comprehending it, it will be discovered and comprehended.

I'm with ya, Commander :bdroid2:

You're just agreeing with me because I have power :p

You got me:)

I just wanna be a Super Moderator with as many posts as you have. Mommy, can I be a Moderator?:(

Can you at least share with partly. Common, you can give me "super" and I'll become "super sith probe" or "sith super probe". Or you'd better give me "moderator"