Physics

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Originally posted by chucko
My boss at work was trying to explain how, for example, a 2 dimensional thing can't understand a 3 dimensional thing. his example was that you can unfold a simple box into a line and vis-versa, then you can unfold a cube into a box; similar to unfolding a 3 dimensional object (hypothetically speaking) into a 2 dimensional object then unfolding again into a 1 dimensional object. if this pattern is consistent, then a 3rd dimensional thing could fold into a 4th dimensional thing, unimaginable to a 3rd dimensional human. eh, hope thats kinda clear, my boss did a good job of explaining it to me with a drawing :p .

well anyways, then he was saying how some scientist believe that there are like 20 dimensions or something. when it comes to trying to understand the universe, i dont even know where to begin, theres so many possibilities its crazy.

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For some interesting reading on this subject, check out Flatland and Sphereland by Edwin Abbott

WARNING HIGHLY SPECULATIVE RAMBLINGS AHEAD

Can someone here theorise or postulate what a 5 dimensional universe would be like?

If dimensions are percieved rules pertaining to the universe in question, then is it logical to state that our 4 dimensional universe binds us by linear time alone, meaning that because we percieve time as linear, we cannot by will alone, travel into the past or future. Therefore we exist in the present. Would a 5 dimensional being be able to transcend these limitations?

I would imagine a 5 dimensional entity, should be able to experience time without the contraints of the linear version we do. Therefore a 5d being can exist at any point in time and probably exists in all points in time simultaneously. Just a thought, I've always pondered when ppl with NDEs(Near Death Experience) say they saw their whole life flash before their eyes, it might be cliche now, but perhaps this is only a glimpse of what a 5d state would entail. Now of course a 5d state would still have boundaries, just not the same ones we experience.

If scientist postulate upto 20 dimensions I wonder how the heck they envisage these universes working. Is a 6 dimension universe/multiverse/what have you, mean that you have all the 3 dimensions of length, width, height plus linear time plus another 2 dimensions of time ie since linear time is 1d time, perhaps 2d or 3d time whatever that is.

Man I should stop doing this... *pops a vein on his forehead*

I've never quite understood how even a four-dimensional (physically, time not included) universe would look. I used to care about that, but from what I can tell, nobody really understands it; we just understand that we are incapable of imagining it. :) If someone could point me towards some sort of essay/book/website that actually does explain it in terms that make sense, I would be grateful. Time may actually be a fourth physical dimension that we don't perceive clearly, but I doubt it. That just wouldn't make sense. :)

Here is an example of a 4D object. The tesseract...

http://pw1.netcom.com/~hjsmith/WireF...tesseract.html

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Originally posted by dq386
Here is an example of a 4D object. The tesseract...

http://pw1.netcom.com/~hjsmith/WireF...tesseract.html

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Remember this isn’t quite a 4 dimensional object. It’s a 4 dimensional object mapped into 2 dimensions. Think of it line a 3D image on a computer screen. What you are actually looking at is a 2 dimensional image, because it’s on a computer screen, but it is mapped and laid out in such a way that it looks like a real 3 dimensional object would.

The difference here is that we think in three dimensions not 4 so our brains can interpret the 3D case, the 4D case often doesn’t make as much sense as it should. For example, if I’m not mistaken, each of the lines in that picture represents an “outer edge” of the object in 4 dimensions. Our brains just don’t make sense of this the way they would with a 3 dimensional image.

Mathematically we can say a lot about 4 dimensional space, but trying to visualize it isn’t going to work all that well.

i have a question. i was wondering if there was anything in the whole world that could attract photons to it?

any thing with mass, in the sense that the path of the photons would be bent towars the object and when u have something as massive as a black hole light would be trapped if it goes too close to it (ove the event horizon)

Light is related to the electromagenetic field. I'd imagine that electromagnetic waves would have an effect on light.

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Originally posted by Moridin
Mathematically we can say a lot about 4 dimensional space, but trying to visualize it isn’t going to work all that well.

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Well put. In math, many of the times you're discussing 4-D objects, you're usually assigning a quality to a fixed point in 3-D space. Density is a very common example of this. Indeed there are numerous examples of situations where you try to fit a certain attribute to a coordinate, in the process "adding" a dimension. Calculus 3 (and some of 2) deals with a lot of this. There are ways to manipulate this in specific cases where for example you can turn a triple integral into a double integral or vice versa. Stokes/Divergence theorems come to mind as such examples, but regardless of how many dimensions you're dealing with, its difficult to visualize dimensions beyond three. After this you simply have to conceptualize dimensions.

The best way I can think of it is to say that its more conceptualizing rather than visualizing fourth or higher order dimensions.

Personally I think of higher order dimensions as qualities attributed to a point in 3-D or 2-D space. This maybe time or density or a number of other things, but the concept is still the same.

Teleportation of a beam of photons has been reported to be sucessful. Read this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/2049048.stm

It's a very strange phenomenon which raises several more questions.

Nice find!!! That article is very interesting, and this is a very promising discovery. The part about encrypted info, is very promising. Here is hoping this developes into something useful for everyone.

pretty old, now they can do laser teleportation

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Originally posted by Tracker00
pretty old, now they can do laser teleportation

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...which was mentioned in the article, I think...

Here's another link to the story from Yahoo News.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...eleportation_1

Arcadian

I read about this a long time ago in Scientific American!

Not too long now before their teleporting atoms, molecules, then eventually us!