4D "Upgrade"?

[4 degrees oiT]

I got to thinking the other day. I was wondering if this works theoretically. A 3d being can observe the 2nd dimension, and affect it in many ways, one of which is we can "fold it up" and make it 3-dimensional. (ie, make a square into a cube).

Could a tetra being "fold up" parts of the 3rd dimension and make it into a 4-d space? I thought it would be cool if it could happen, especially if they could "fold up" a 3-d person and make them into a tetra being. This of course assumes that tetra beings exist. I doubt though that a human could survive the process, but it's an interesting thought.

[3dftw]

Hey man cool theory.
I think it would probably work, but don't you have to assume that matter is a constant in both dimensions and that the fundamental forces are similar? What if the 4d strong force that bonds protons in the nucleus is stronger than our 3d atoms can take, and the particles are squashed in so tightly that they are pushed into a singularity and cause a strong gravitational pull that creates a black hole in the middle of tetraspace and it is sucked into oblivion?!

I love Dream Theater too by the way.

[Keiji]

All that "folding up" stuff does is change its bounding space. Since the net space is unaffected, the only difference one living in the space being folded would notice is curvature.

[papernuke]

yah, if a fourth dimensional being folded up our universe, there would be no difference to us other than an unnatural curve in spacetime wherever the 4D being put the folds. for example. a 3D being (us) folded up the 2D universe, everything would be the same exept for when the 2D being go to the edges of the cube (or whatever you folded the universe into). the edges would distort the spacetime in that area .

[4 degrees oiT]

Ah I understand.

Hmmm, I wonder if a 4d being could fold our world to be like a maze? Make experiments on us. That'd be crazy!

[Hugh]

I got to thinking the other day. I was wondering if this works theoretically. A 3d being can observe the 2nd dimension, and affect it in many ways, one of which is we can "fold it up" and make it 3-dimensional. (ie, make a square into a cube).

Could a tetra being "fold up" parts of the 3rd dimension and make it into a 4-d space? I thought it would be cool if it could happen, especially if they could "fold up" a 3-d person and make them into a tetra being. This of course assumes that tetra beings exist. I doubt though that a human could survive the process, but it's an interesting thought.

Here's a page with some animation movies to watch that might help understand what would happen... http://www.math.union.edu/~dpvc/math/4D/folding/welcome.html

It's hard to completely visualize folding the 3d cubes into 4d but this helps a bit, especially when you understand the 2d squares folding up into 3d first...

[zero]

By the way, if you fold up a three-dimensional object to form a four-dimensional one, the result is just as hollow as when you fold up a two-dimensional object in three dimensions. All you obtain is a surface with nothing inside.

[mbr88]

I dont know if this was mentioned before, but I think the best way for humans to interact with the 4th dimension would be to turn ourselves into cyborgs. For example, we could attach a synthetic 4d arm around our 3d arm, so it doesn't appears infinitely small in the tetraspace anymore. Since tecnology allows us to connect our brains with implanted parts, we could eventually explore the fourth dimension more freely. We could even implant a 4d eye on humans. this sounds a little scary though...

[papernuke]

The arm part would probably work.. but the eye part needs something else. The brain would need an extra 4D implant, or else the feeds that the 3D brain receives wouldnt be processed and you wouldnt know whats happening .
thats the same thing as not having an eye.

[mbr88]

Do you mean our brain can't 'understand' 4d vision?
Even if it doesn't, maybe there could be (3d) chips that could convert these feeds into something our brain can handle. Or perhaps when we use 4d eyes to see, we actually see the 3d projection of the 4d world.

Well.. either way we would still need the help of a kind 4d soul to help make the 4d stuff

[papernuke]

Lol, we'd also need to be like what? 500-1000 years in the future?

[wendy]

Nets are silly, especially if you can't grasp how they roll up!