A higher Dimension

[Vinny]

From the NOVA: The Elegant Universe website:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/dimensions.html
Search for and click on "Multidimensional Math" for moving to higher dimension in math.

Can anybody explain the idea of 5th dimension and up to me? I can grasp the concept of 4+ dimension in math, but I can't I can't seem to grasp the concept in illustration. What is a hypercube? And I didn't understand the little curl up dimension thing at all.

For the hypercube thing, what the heck is "hyperdepth"?



[This message has been edited by Vinny (edited 11-24-2003 01:18 PM).]

[Beartalon]

hyperdepth is the added dimension - height x width x depth x hyperdepth.

[zeek]

No hyperwidth? Hyperheight?

[Vinny]

yeah, but what the heck is it? I mean, it looks so nice in writing, but can you explain the concept of hyperdepth to me?

Maybe our brains are just not cabable of grasping 5D+

[Vinny]

Vinny, I think you can only grasp these concepts in a mathematical context. Either it's because we can't, like you said, or it's a bunch of bullock.

[Huey]

What the?

That previous post was either me forgetting to change the username before posting, or Vinny from another dimension answering his own question.

[One Skunk Todd]

[Beartalon]

It might be the dawning of the age of Aquarius, but that explanation holds no water with me.

[extropalopakettle]

The N^th dimension is to the N-1^th dimension as the N-1^th dimension is to the N-2^th dimension.

[Marvin]

They tried to explain it on the show like this:

If you look out of your window, you (might) see a power line or a telephone cable or something, strung across the street. From a distance it looks like a 1-dimensional line. You can imagine it having just a length, no width or height.

Now imagine you're a very very tiny ant, sitting on top of the cable. It stretches away from you a long way in a straight line. But it also curves round to the left and right ('cos it's a cylinder). And if you follow it round to the left or right, you go round the circumference of the cable and end up back where you started.

Dunno if that helps or not.

[Highest Prime]

Have you ever played 3-D tic-tac-toe on a sheet of paper?

How do you represent the third dimension? Usually, it's done by drawing three TTT grids in a straight line and playing "across" them; that is, you can win by playing top left in the first grid, center of the second grid, bottom right of the third grid. You're supposed to mentally superimpose the three grids on top of one another. Few people have a problem with this, since - as our world is in three dimensions - it's easy to visualize the three grids as existing as three "slices" in a 3-D world. You could in fact physically demonstrate this by placing the three grids on top of one another.

Visualizing 4-D is as simple (?) as substituting Rubik's Cubes on your desk for the TTT grids on a sheet of paper. In 4-D space, those three cubes could exist in three adjacent "slices" of 3-D space, and you could "stack" the three cubes atop one another to approximate a 4-D representation of a hypercube. (You can't physically do so, of course; any stacking of cubes would have to be in one of our existing three dimensions.)

This explanation probably isn't any clearer than anything else on the topic. *shrug* I dunno. I can sorta kinda visualize up to 5-D without causing my brain to melt. After that, all bets are off.

H'

[i_h8_evil_stuff]

To elaborate on Marvin's explination:

We may see it as a 1-dimensional object, and the Ant only sees it as a TWO dimensional surface, not 3. The first is the length (from one house to the other), and the second is AROUND. The ant doesn't know that it's moving both down and left when it goes around, it only knows it's going clockwise.

An ant on a ball also feels the same way. We see the ball's length, width, and height, but the ant can only see 2 dimensions of the ball from wherever it is: forward/backward and left/right. See the (very crude) drawing below:


Each ant can only see 2 directions of movement.

So, according to the string theory, there are (I think) 11 spatial dimensions: the 3 we can see now (x, y, z), and 8 infinitely small circular dimensions that we travel through, but cannot see.

[This message has been edited by i_h8_evil_stuff (edited 11-24-2003 04:42 PM).]

[Vinny]

I don't think the ant on the cable explanation is accurate. The cable to the ant is actually 3 dimensional, only the width and height is very small.

A better explanation I liked was this:

If you are a dot in the exact center of a circle in a 2D surface, where can you move so that your distance to the edge remained the same in all direction? No where, on the 2D surface. But you can in 3D, move up and down, and still stay in the same relative distance to the edge.

Now imagine you're dot in the center of a sphere, where can you move so that your distance to the edge remained the same? No where in 3D, but you can in 4D, in time. You stay in the same place in the 3rd dimesion, and time progresses on. Simple enough.

Now, you're the dot in the center of ALL those spheres that are moving through time, where can you move so that you're still in the same position in time? This is where my brain starts trying to hack itself to dead. I just can't seem to grasp higher than 4D.

So when they started explaining those little twirly universes hidden in the spaces all around us, that's just rubbish to me. What the hell are they talking? What friggin curls?

[Fried Egg]

A hypercube is not too difficult to imagine.

You know how you make a cube out of a piece of paper? You draw six squares in a kind of cross shape. cut them out and hten you can fold them (through three dimensions) into a cube.

Making a hypercube is just as easy. Take eight cubes and arrange them in a similar three dimensional cross shape. It is then a simply matter to fold these (through four dimensions) into a hypercube.

If that doesn't help, Experience hyperspace with a stereoscopic 4d game in and around the hypercube.

[Marvin]

The point of the ant-on-the-cable thing was that you only see a one dimensional line, and the ant sees more dimensions than you. Because it's very tiny. In particular, the 'dimension' that goes around the circumference of the cross-section of the cable. Which you can't see. 'Cos you're big. It's just an analogy, and analogies in general aren't terribly reliable.

[Huey]

oops, wrong thread

[This message has been edited by Huey (edited 12-03-2003 12:42 PM).]

[Pablo]

[chief ten beers]

"up up, up and awaaay... in a beautiful balloon..."

[Hitchhiker]

Scientific American last month said that our unverse might be a 4th-dimensional holographic projection of a fifth-dimensional objective reality, which we only interpret as 3-dimensional because of our limited senses.

Just thought I'd throw that in.

[zeek]

Larry, who lives down the block from me, said he was pretty sure the universe was a 7-dimensional manifold reflected onto a 5-dimensional objective reality that appears in our 3-dimensional world to have a one-dimensional truth to it, but he just broke up with his girlfriend, so it was probably just his emotions talking.

[Werebear]

1st dimension - a line on a piece of paper. A one dimensional world is kinda pointless, pun intended. Width (or length) only

2nd dimension - a world of lines on a single plain. Now, imagine that you dropped a basketball through the 2-dimensional plain. The 2D people living there would see only a line that got bigger for a bit, then got smaller and disappeared - they would only see a slice of the basketball at a time. It would be like making a room dark and running a laser over the basketball, you'd only see a tiny stripe at a time. length and width only, no height

3rd dimension - where we live. Height, width, and length. We could look down on a 2D world and they'd have no idea we were above them, since we're not on their plain of reality. They can't see up.

4th dimension?

some say it's time. Kurt Vonnegut had a creature who lived in the fourth dimension, and they described humans as looking like a centipede, with a baby in the front and an old man at the end.

Some describe it like folding space peculiarly, so you could move from one place to the other without using length, width, or height. For instance, a room, if you went out one end, you could come in the other end instantly. You could see in a closed box without opening it, much the way 3d could look down on 2d worlds. That's very simplified, but it's a few ideas. Madeline L'Engle's "tesseract" from "A Wrinkle in Time" tries to grapple with this.

5th dimension? I always imagined it as a cross between the two ideas for the 4th dimension, where time and space don't really mean anything any more. *shrug* It might also be seeing parallel dimensions/universes at the same time, so you'd have height, width, length, bredth, and time *laugh*

[Highest Prime]

Originally posted by Pablo:

---

Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr singing 'Stoned Soul Picnic'.

---

I'd like to shamelessly boast that I grasped that, by the way. In fact, I used the Fifth Dimension in a VSP not too long ago ...

H'

[tinman]

Last post...
Interesting Huricanes this year (2) opened the 5th demension. This was one of the things Einstien confirmed. Florida hurican stopped off shore at about 100 miles for 42 min..then went from level 3 to level 4 and came ashore. There are some mathe elements (old time name) is sacred geomentry. Look up that to see the forms. This matematicle form Appeared in huricane eye...I found it as I thought and was looking for this to happen. I got photos of it this 3 demensionla math is the door to the fifth demension in which power is drawn in from another demension (5th). It was on news weather but no one new what it was onley couple frames. You see what it did 3 to a 4 in power over the whole huricane. There are actuly 26 demensions that reside at different vibrations on the Aeighter. Oh yes I got photos of them (2) eyes..and its first time ever that hyper math was seen 3 d not suken in. I realy dont like that as we are passing through flux belt in Galaxy now, which will do some very strange stuff clue watch for weird clouds like u never saw.
This is my thoughts that could help thinkers.......tinman

[extropalopakettle]

roger that, tinman.

[tinman]

[tinman]

In my huricane eye you see the hyper effects and geometry but you can not see all of it as it was not strong enough at that time. I hope I do not see it open any more that it was Neptune has this same type huricane. Dont want to quote speed,
Its happnong because we are going through a field in Aeighter...so youll see what I mean as this was first huricane season upon entering field.
The 5th demension was open and pumping energy but not visible effects the geometry was. Ok question was prove Aeighter: Ok I will.
Take a flashlight sine a foucus beam at night or better in light fog. The beam stays round because of the Aeighter. Confusing as the Q Mx and Victorean science in some places compliment each other. Example of Q Mex you no when Shamans use Oh ma pad ne om....will thats a fundemental vibration and pho pho in science so it crosses at time but with other names like charka points as in acupunctuer. That stuff is real Q Mx but Victorean in name. Consider it all read it out investigate. Just ideas.
Tinman

Just outside observations...

[Tinman]

On folding space.....to worm hole travel.....
There are X ray forces and massive radiation if you could do it it would take many stars with large mases to bend worm hole........a super star will have 250 thousand pounds of material (say sand) in a level teaspoon. The sand hills that are 4 inches high if toppled would cause massive earthquake. You no this is a lot of mass. Well never worm-hole but will evebtualy transient star systems. Its calculated there is not enough energy to bend space to a worm hole. Youd have a gravitron wave problem to and youd go into spegetification........You luck would be you end up on a prison colony of canibles and the hole closes. There are holes that open but there Aeighter gates....Youll no if you get near one as things will act different the hit one (proof) in The Antartic at a weather station where in the were sounding a ballon and the clock on it lost time, each time thay sent it up....time is man made, but clocks are mechanicle /........wich means the valance system was in a gravitron field and slowed clock. This is real actual stuff. Valance(escapement mechanisim ..tic tic )
Hope it musters thought, just ideas to kick around.....

Tinman
thoughts

[Leptonn]

There's a really great word in that last post:

"spegetification" The act of turning into spaghetti due to intense gravitational forces, such as in a black hole.