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Are there really 1st and 2nd dimensions? #326672
06/02/10 09:45
06/02/10 09:45
Joined: Oct 2004
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Joozey Offline OP
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I'm sure there are pro physicists who would laugh at me right away and tell the real truth about dimensions, but nobody likes those people anyway.

Inspired by this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkxieS-6WuA

Blabla flatland blabla. But does the second dimension really exist as we imagine it?

What if we would throw it on another wagon, and imagined dimensions like the following:

We are in the first dimension, as we have no visual indication there are dimensions lower than us. 2D does not exist, if you try to make 2D, it will always be 3D. Atoms are 3D. A dot is 3D, even though infinitely small, if something has 0 width, 0 length and 0 height, it still has the properties of width, length and height merely because it exists in a 3D world. The 2D concept in reality doesn't make much sense to me.

But we can go up in dimension. We know that we can move, and therefore move through the 3rd dimension which we from now on call the 1st dimension. So what we perceive as time is actually now the 2nd dimension. We move through time, but always forward, though with various speeds. We can not go back in time whenever we want.

I do not believe 1D and 2D exists as dimensions one could move through. Flatlanders can not move. They are smudged along the original "1st" (not space) and "2nd" (not time) dimension, but do not find themselves in the stream of time like we do. But there is a repeating pattern. We start with a dot, then draw a line (1D) then a square (2D) then a 3 dimensional object (3D). We could see this 3 dimensional object as a dot again, as visible in the youtube movie. It is where one point on the square folds towards the other, and how we used to imagine "The quickest way from A to B". Make a fold in the paper and pierce a hole. But it doesn't end with that. You should imagine also that there is not just one fold. There are infinite folds. The square crumbles into itself as it connects all possible positions towards all possible positions, into one infinitely tiny dot (this is also much fun to visualise with a piece of paper, and then throw to your teacher's head :D). So 3D becomes 1D. When smudged 3D space as a line, we have something that is also known as a timeline. The ball of paper flying towards your teacher's head.

Now back to the original assumption that 1D is space, 2D is time. Since 1D, space, is a dot, and we denied the existence of a line as 2D, we shouldn't time call 2D then, since time is a line of the previous dimension. Time is merely a means of "travelling" through the 1st dimension, not necessarily a dimension itself. What then really happens is that we are smudged along the timeline. But if the timeline is a depicted line and a means of moving, what would the square then be?

A timeline smudged over another length like a square would seem close to the tree of possibilities. Here we got every possible situation of every point in time in a nice square. But we also denied the existence of 2D squares as dimension, so the tree of possibilities is not a dimension either. It is just a means to make variations in the timeline.

An interesting effect is that we can barely interfere with the flow of time, but we cán (or so we experience) interfere with the flow of possibilities quite easily. We must move from left to right over the square of possibilities, but can change our position to up or down by the choices we make.

Imagine a cone where you are a little ball on top. Gravity will pull you down, it is the flow of time, you can not go up. But you can go around the cone however you please. Furthermore, the faster you go around the cone, the slower you will fall down towards the end. So making choices slows down time it seems. Is this odd? I think not. For to make choices, you have to move. The faster you move, the more possibilities you trigger. It is not the kind of possibilities one makes during his life. It is the possibilities of triggering quantum effects with your actions. If you move, you have a bigger chance of hitting particles and generate an effect. If you move aplenty, you trigger more effects. Could this be related with slowing down in time while speeding up?

Now we end up with the 3rd dimension. And like 1D and 2D, 3D is a dot again. It is where the square folds into itself. All possibilities of every point in time merges into all other. It is there where time travelling is possible. If you travel in time, you travel into possibilities as well. This I perceive as the whole of our universe. Get behind that wall and you're in our newly defined 3rd dimension.

It doesn't stop there, but the rest is visible in the movie. This story was meant to give a different insight into dimensions, not to develop a different theory. Essentially we all mean the same, but it is the mainstream conditioning on one perception (flatland) that makes us blind for other insights. Your opinions are appreciated laugh.

Thanks for reading!


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Re: Are there really 1st and 2nd dimensions? [Re: Joozey] #326748
06/02/10 17:47
06/02/10 17:47
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AlbertoT Offline
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The string theory entails the existance of additional dimensions ,up to 11
In the past also Kaluza postulated the existance of a fourth spatial dimension
Thanks to this extra dimensions he was able to unify the equations of the elettromagnetic and gravitational field as well as to explain the existance of neutral and electrically charged particles
The unification was the Einstein's dream so he took this theory very seriously
It is not a laughable theory but as a matter of fact it is not supported by any experimental evidence

Re: Are there really 1st and 2nd dimensions? [Re: AlbertoT] #335961
07/31/10 21:58
07/31/10 21:58
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deianthropus Offline
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A limited understanding of dimensional theory in a question like this is like having a hammer with no handle.

2d planes can be described as existing within 3d space, and for this reason they are extremely useful in physics, both for conceptualization and calculation. (for example, height and length trajectory calculations).

3-D, in reality, is a dimensional shorthand similar to 2-d shorthand. We know that time is considered to be a dimension. When you intend to organize an event, for example meeting someone in their office, you need to know the street address of the building (2d: 11th and Madison, for example), then you need to know the floor number ( the third dimension) and finally you need to know what time to meet him. (the fourth dimension,)

String theory suggests that the 5th thru 11th dimensions exist in tiny finite closed loops in the shape of "calabi-yau" spaces. Since these spaces are both self-enclosed and so extremely tiny (smaller than the planck length, or the smallest unit of measurement in modern science), these dimensions are for most purposes irrelevant, so we use the 4-dimensional model.

Last edited by deianthropus; 07/31/10 21:59.
Re: Are there really 1st and 2nd dimensions? [Re: Joozey] #336011
08/01/10 06:28
08/01/10 06:28
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deianthropus Offline
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Followup: I watched the video, although I must say that's a much different take on multidimensional theory. As to the 2d-3d analogue, the clip of the planes thru the human being followed by the 4-d "worm" says it all. If I were 3d, I may still perceive distance (supposing I had 2 eyes) and therefore the contours, and not just the length from one tangential extreme to another. Presumably just the color on the edge would be visible to me, since there is no way to "sidestep" the current plane and see inside. It's just math. Game Studio gets it, up to #3 (and in a roundabout machine sort of way, #4).

Re: Are there really 1st and 2nd dimensions? [Re: deianthropus] #336298
08/02/10 21:57
08/02/10 21:57
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PHeMoX Offline
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Quote:
We know that time is considered to be a dimension.


Actually in modern physics it isn't anymore considered a dimension. Ever since Einstein came up with spacetime and soon that idea got developed further.

In short, spacetime is no spatial dimension at all and as such is treated differently in physics nowadays. One could say time is no dimension at all.

If you're interested, you should do a search for Minkowski space. It's interesting stuff to learn.


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Re: Are there really 1st and 2nd dimensions? [Re: PHeMoX] #336372
08/03/10 14:13
08/03/10 14:13
Joined: Jul 2002
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Error014 Offline
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Quote:
We are in the first dimension, as we have no visual indication there are dimensions lower than us.


While "visual indication" could mean just about anything, there are at least "indications" that there are "dimensions lower than us". By putting two semiconductors (that fulfill certain conditions that I don't want to get into right now) together, you can actually create a two-dimensional electron-gas (Wikilink). Naturally, they are technically three-dimensional, but as long as their energy is lower than a certain tresholdvalue (which you can easily control), they only have two directions to move in, and thus behave like a two-dimensional electron-gas.
If you do the math for such a gas (i.e. assume that there are only two dimensions), you'll find that it explains the behaviour of it.


Maybe not directly related to the discussion, but hey, maybe you're interested.


Perhaps this post will get me points for originality at least.

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Re: Are there really 1st and 2nd dimensions? [Re: Error014] #336478
08/04/10 12:13
08/04/10 12:13
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Joey Offline
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@phemox: i don't really get that. why is time no dimension? and what has it to do with a minkowsky space which is nothing but a mathematical construct to describe one of einstein's theories?

Re: Are there really 1st and 2nd dimensions? [Re: Joey] #336482
08/04/10 13:52
08/04/10 13:52
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PHeMoX Offline
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In short, true time with it's relativistic property is bound to basically all 3 (at least and most likely more, but lets keep it simple) dimensions. Unifying space with time on both the subatomic and super-galactic levels therefore makes much more sense. 'Time' isn't actually something separate, it's not a separate spatial dimension and on itself is not even physical. Still it's evidentially essential.
It is simply no longer looked upon as a true 'fourth' dimension in the classical Euclidean space perception of time as just literally a ticking clock.

Ever since Einstein and friends managed to merge space and time into a single manifold with their theories, they've effectively simplified how to describe the workings of the universe in that area and made it much more unified. Basically that is what mathematics is for, a tool to create such manifolds. The reference to Minkowski was made to explain how spacetime is looked upon (in a mathematical sense) as the actual fourth dimension nowadays, instead of the older perception of 'time' (without being merged to 3D space) as a dimension with non-physical or non-spatial properties. In the Minkowski space, both timelike components and spatial components are mathematically described/explained.

I'm afraid you'll have to dive into and understand the theory of relativity for the Minkowski space to really make sense though. Much of it is simply a mathematical way of explaining how active time-related events make sense; causality relations described in a mathematical way.

Think about of describing how 'time makes a clock tick', yet then in any and all of the dimensional (spatial) directions.

This is all a significant difference compared to the older idea of 'time', even though it might not look like something too important in words. It's all about coherency and unification. Don't forget we aren't actually able to move through 'time', in whatever direction. One would experience the relativistic properties of spacetime under certain conditions, but one can not say that we posses the freedom of movement in a 'time dimension'. As such it's pretty odd to look upon time as a dimension. Spacetime makes much more sense.

Anyway, it's why one could basically argue that 'time' itself is no dimension at all.


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Re: Are there really 1st and 2nd dimensions? [Re: PHeMoX] #336545
08/04/10 22:15
08/04/10 22:15
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Joey Offline
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Okay, you're right. But the concept of the Minkowski space is nothing more than a vector space with a specific scalar product, that's why I was confused. Of course physical laws restrict motion in time. But they also restrict your spatial motion.
And if you're speaking of manifolds, I think that your Minkowski manifold is still four-dimensional (for each point there is a chart which maps it to the R^4, singularities excluded). And as far as I know you can map time to a specific component (of course you can, as in R^4 it is essentially a change of basis). Hence I would say that it is ok to speak of time as a separate dimension. Dimension is not a global but a local thing.
Speaking of moving through time, I think you cannot say that making choices slows down time. As time and the fifth or whatever "choice" dimension are distinct ones you can move through them independently. Just imagine a ball you throw: gravity pulls it down as entropy pulls you through time and the forward motion does in no way affect it (we neglect friction, relativity etc.). Movement through time is a uniform motion while the higher dimensions (the choice thing) doesn't even have to be topological manifolds. This means you cannot even define velocity, so a discussion about this doesn't make much sense.

Re: Are there really 1st and 2nd dimensions? [Re: Joey] #337228
08/09/10 16:33
08/09/10 16:33
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PHeMoX Offline
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Well, I'm pretty sure dimensions in physics are looked upon as something global in a spatial sense. There's no way you can have a couple of dimensions in one place and none elsewhere or one less elsewhere or anything like that. (Except when you're thinking of objects in a space that have different properties, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I was speaking of spatial dimensions we can or might be able to move through. Objects might have dimensional properties one can describe, it doesn't mean the object limits the amount of possible spatial dimensions at all.)

You're right in how dimensions in theory aren't restricted to physical objects or physical space, but when it comes to real-life applications of the theories involved, we certainly are very much bound to physical space. Unless someday we get those Star Trek 'beam me up Scotty' devices of course.

Hence why 'traveling' through dimensions higher than the 3rd quickly becomes a mostly purely theoretical thing. Especially when it comes to (fictional or not) parallel dimensions or the higher dimensions.

There are still people that think 'time' travel might actually be possible, but they're all talking mostly about wrapping around or curving what is nowadays called spacetime.

Either way much of this talk of dimensions higher than the 3rd is unproven theory, except for abstract usage of dimensions in mathematics which makes sense in that domain.

Quote:
This means you cannot even define velocity, so a discussion about this doesn't make much sense.


Regardless of dimensions, if there's some kind of movement or motion in whatever dimensional direction that we can observe, sure enough one can also derive a velocity when comparing to say other objects in the same space and dimension which might not move at all. It would be simply defined within a different dimension, but would mean the same thing in practice.

It remains a question whether we can figure out a way to actually detect the higher (spatial) dimensions though, as for example a 1-dimensional being would have incredible difficulties to detect something that's 3-dimensional. I'd say it's perhaps not even possible, or is it?

By the way, I'm not quite following your idea of 'choice related or choice dependent' dimensions here. What exactly does it mean and how much of it has been proven with evidence?

I'm mainly thinking of higher dimensions of physical space in the sense of how the string theory predicts that there are up to 10 maybe even 11 dimensions, all spatial in nature. (Obviously I'm aware that is a theory also.)


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