4-D terms

[Oren]

Hi, everyone! My name is Oren, and I am the originator and head writer of a series which involves 4-D physics. I was wondering if you might be able to help me out with some research.

Are there terms meaning "furthest ana" and "furthest kata"? Tridth versions of "top" and "bottom"? For that matter, what are the comparative forms of ana and kata?

Is there a term for a 3-D realm which is bent? I'm specifically looking for the 4-D analog of a funnel. (the shape of a wormhole)

And on a related note, I could use some ideas on how a character might travel to another world. So far, there's 4-D travel (used it) microverses (used it) time travel (rejected it) phases (used it) mental and spirit planes (used it) quantum realities (rejected it) and I am reluctant to go beyond 4 spatial dimensions, as it might boggle the readers' minds.

Thanks, everyone!

[Aale de Winkel]

That 3-d realm which is bent is called universe.
The planets are still traveling in straight lines in a bent space due to the gravity of the sun. (relativity theory)
Due to this bending astronomers can actually see the stars behind the sun, because the light of those stars is bent around the sun.

Privately I used the term "omniverse" as the space enclosing all "universes", (used this for a funny sci-fi story for sci-fi presents for my nephew). I had my nephews and niece travel around that 'omniverse" using "star-gates" (a la Buck Rogers).
StarTreck's "warp" I can imagin to be some bending of space.

How tetronian travel looks like, I haven't the faintest. I see no reason why other quantum realities should not be visitable.
Tetronian time travel might also suffer the same paradoxes as our Trionian time travellers experience.

Tetridth versions of the thridth "top" and 'bottom" I don't have, perhaps one can think of some systematic terms for the n-idth front or hind positions (some linguist among our midst?!)
((btw. I introduced "tetradth", Garrett seems to prefer "tetridth" for anology with "width" (which also is not a systematic term))

suppose it is possible to call these "tetramin" en "tetramax" which could be easily systematized "trimin" en "trimax", "dimin" en "dimax", "monomin" en "monomax" (for the direction 3, 2 and 1).
the actual position would then be "tetrapos" etc.

[alkaline]

Hi, everyone! My name is Oren, and I am the originator and head writer of a series which involves 4-D physics. I was wondering if you might be able to help me out with some research.

Hello Owen! welcome to the forum. So what is this series for? a written work - book, magazine, etc, or for tv? it sounds interesting.

Are there terms meaning "furthest ana" and "furthest kata"? Tridth versions of "top" and "bottom"? For that matter, what are the comparative forms of ana and kata?

note for "tridth": I am going to replace the term with a separate term because of its beginning with "tri", which is associated with three and thus the third dimension. Thus, it will be changed to "tetridth", and the analogous terms for "wide" and "thin" will be "tetride" and "tetrin".

I like to use three separate sets of terms for "ana" and "kata" based one which three sets of directions of a 4d object i am looking at. If i am looking at a surface in tetraspace (like a roadmap), or a horizontal slice of a 4d object, then the directions into tetraspace are the ones analogous to up and down, ie "upsilon" and "delta". If i am looking at a vertical slice of a 4d object with its extra turning dimension removed, i use the terms analogous to left and right, ie "lambda" and "rho". If i am looking at a 4d object's cross section with its forward and back removed, then the 4d directions are phi and beta.

The set of terms that tetronians would use themselves for their extra direction is "lambda" and "rho", because gravity gives you only one up and down, and direction of movement gives you only one forward and backward, so the only thing left is an extra left and right. I guess ana and kata could be general directions into tetraspace no matter what the relation to realmspace.

For the "farthest positions" of objects:
z axis: front, back
y axis: top, bottom
x axis: left side, right side
as you can see, we don't actually have commonly used for the farthest positions in one of our dimensions (the x axis). You could argue port and starboard, but that's mostly for sailing or large vessels, and not in common usage. So, for the fourth dimension you could use "lambda side" and "rho side", or "ana side" and "kata side", or any of the other terms. Some time we will come up with single words for the terms in the w directions.

Is there a term for a 3-D realm which is bent? I'm specifically looking for the 4-D analog of a funnel. (the shape of a wormhole)

You could just refer to a 3d realm as a "bent realm", or as aale suggested, a "universe". I personally don't know of the name for the shape of a 4d funnel yet. Topologists may have a term for that. Someday i'll get into topology :-)

And on a related note, I could use some ideas on how a character might travel to another world. So far, there's 4-D travel (used it) microverses (used it) time travel (rejected it) phases (used it) mental and spirit planes (used it) quantum realities (rejected it) and I am reluctant to go beyond 4 spatial dimensions, as it might boggle the readers' minds.

Hmm, i was thinking about a possibility the other day. The 3d universe could be in a distant corner of a particular 4d universe, and the tetronians discover it and space-travel over to it, and then locate a planet in this 3d universe. They have to line up the speed of their ship with the orbit of the 3d planet. Then, they procede to find a good subject to study. After they do, they construct a special transparent stand to hold him up and then extract him out of the third dimension and put him inside this stand (so that he wouldn't fall lambda or rho). By moving his arms up or down, the stand will automatically turn lambda or rho for him; thus, he can move everywhere in tetraspace.

I will probably never go beyond 4 spatial dimensions since there is so much to be discovered in the fourth dimension already, and we'd be missing out on it if we skipped up to the fifth dimension :-)

[alkaline]

Privately I used the term "omniverse" as the space enclosing all "universes", (used this for a funny sci-fi story for sci-fi presents for my nephew). I had my nephews and niece travel around that 'omniverse" using "star-gates" (a la Buck Rogers).
StarTreck's "warp" I can imagin to be some bending of space.

That term makes perfect sense. I shall adopt it myself :-)

Tetridth versions of the thridth "top" and 'bottom" I don't have, perhaps one can think of some systematic terms for the n-idth front or hind positions (some linguist among our midst?!)
((btw. I introduced "tetradth", Garrett seems to prefer "tetridth" for anology with "width" (which also is not a systematic term))

for the record, i am a double major in linguistics and computer science :-) I'll look into a systematic system and suggest one.

suppose it is possible to call these "tetramin" en "tetramax" which could be easily systematized "trimin" en "trimax", "dimin" en "dimax", "monomin" en "monomax" (for the direction 3, 2 and 1).
the actual position would then be "tetrapos" etc.

Min and max work if you have a non-disputable orientation. We have this for up/down (up is a higher value), and forward/back (forward is a higher value), but for left and right we don't. I suppose we could just argue that right is the direction of a higher value, and thus that is the direction of the max. Same with lambda and rho, with rho being in the direction of the maximum value.

[Oren]

Well, since you ask, the series is called "Otter Island". It is a sci-fi/fantasy combo. It deals with an island populated by talking otters, which is directly in front of an access to "Oberon's highway".
In this universe (or multiverse, if you prefer) there are approximately one billion realms. Oberon (far different from the traditional Oberon) ordered construction of a magic highway (for lack of a better term) which would allow one to travel ana and kata to reach the other realms.

If anyone is curious, it's at http://pandora.xepher.net/otterisland . I haven't done a lot with 4-D physics yet, but it's coming. One character is going to mirror-reverse himself by going through a wormhole.

Speaking of which... does anyone have any theories on the behavior of left-handed matter? Would someone with left-handed DNA be able to survive eating right-handed nutrients?

As for the terms ana and kata, I have nothing wrong with delta and upsilon, but these terms are short and less confusing. Too many greek letter tend to befuddle the layman, IMHO. I also like "tridth" because it's short and unique. There are already too many 4-D terms beginning with "tetra". If you want to eliminate "tri", how about simply saying "tradth"?

And if nobody minds, I'm going to coin some words for 4-D top and bottom. (puts on comedic crown) yea, henceforth from this day forward, all toilets in the kingdom shall be known as... oops. wrong speech. "furthest ana" shall be known as "apos" (from "apex") and "furthest kata" shall be known as "zakos" (from "zenith kata"). I hereby also decree that the comparative forms shall be "anner" and "kater".

Ha ha! I have defined the limits of the 4th dimension! Stand in awe of my awesome power! Mwa ha ha ha... ha... er...

or not.

As for the "bent realm", I do not believe our universe is bent. Here are my reasons.
1) bending light doesn't bend space. While I have a lot of respect for einstein, his theory of warping space with gravity seems, to quote Douglas Adams", like "a load of fetid dingos' kidneys". It's rather like heating a metal ruler to make it expand and saying that the inches are longer. You haven't changed the length of an inch. You've changed the ruler. Or it's like bending the track of a Hot Wheels set so that the car, following that track, changes vectors as well, then saying that the room has changed shape.
2)By definition, you cannot alter SPACE itself. Space is the ultimate standard of physical measurement. All you CAN do is move the things IN space. You can't change the plane that Fred's world is on, but you CAN take Fred's world off of that plane and wrap it into a cylinder. Supposedly, this would allow Fred to travel continuously in one direction and end up at the same place. But there are problems with that...
3) 3-D objects exert gravity in 3 dimensions. There is no evidence to suggest that it acts ana or kata.
4) Imagine that one day Fred is out playing frisbee. Now Bob, being the mischeivous fellow that he is, places a tennis ball under Fred's world, creating a 3-D bump, imperceptible to Fred. Fred throws his frisbee and is dismayed when it simply disappears. Bob, on the other hand, sees the frisbee fly off of the "page" of Fred's world after hitting the bump. Now if Fred's world were wrapped into a cylinder, the entire thing would be a continuous bump. Since 2-D objects can only travel in 2 dimensions, anything moving, unless it is moving straight up or down, would be instantly carried by its own momentum out of the world. Fred's little world would dissolve in a horrible 3-D heat death in seconds. By extension, the laws of physics as we know them imply that our realm is perfectly flat tridthwise, it, too would quickly dissolve. The only way this would not be so is if the gravitational forces in the universe were strong enough that everything acted on everything else to keep it in its neat little bent realm. However, we know that this only occurrs at unnaturally low energy levels of a smidgeon of a degree Kelvin (Einstin-Bose superatomic state)

But the great thing about fantasy is that a little magic solves everything.

[Aale de Winkel]

and the sun, stars and planets are circling the earth, don't travel too far since you plunch over
the earth's edge into oberons realm, getten swollowed by the ether the earth floats on.

too much sci-fi/fantasy brings you back to prehistorian physics I think

but yeh, in star-trek "voyager" the race "ocampa" can't exist, since when a couple can have only one child you have a decreasing population!

[Polyhedron Dude]

As for the terms ana and kata, I have nothing wrong with delta and upsilon, but these terms are short and less confusing. Too many greek letter tend to befuddle the layman, IMHO.

I like using the words wint and zant, they "sound" more like direction names. I also use marp and garp, for the tetra-extentions of north, south, east, and west.

Polyhedron Dude

[Aale de Winkel]

reintroducing the thridth to stand for tetridth is really a bad idea, counting characters the difference is only one (so what's the problem(?)).
personally I like to make thing simple, and thus everything based on the number 4.
If you get tired of tetra, note the other series where 4 is denoted as quatro,
when I would ponder about a tetronian novel, I would make "tetra" female and "quatro" male (or vice versa)
Though Emily in her Quadruplex (ie tetronian dwelling) in Tetrapol (a tetronian city) can nurture her Quint (tetronian male toddler) while her Trint (tetronian daughter) is visiting her Quand (tetronian husband) in Quadrupol (an other tetronian city)

(though note Quint is here a bad idea because of the resemblence of this series '5', but somewhere along these lines)

[Aale de Winkel]

Speaking of which... does anyone have any theories on the behavior of left-handed matter? Would someone with left-handed DNA be able to survive eating right-handed nutrients?

No they won't this is just the reason why one of these didn't survive the scrutiny of evolution, though both are equally possible.
It might as well be that when a left-hander would meet his right-handed counterpart they would merge into nothingness.
Just as when a particle colides against an antiparticle, nothing remains but energie.
Though a seperate anti-matter universe is quite possible, it doesn't siply mix with the matter universe!

[Aale de Winkel]

Min and max work if you have a non-disputable orientation. We have this for up/down (up is a higher value), and forward/back (forward is a higher value), but for left and right we don't. I suppose we could just argue that right is the direction of a higher value, and thus that is the direction of the max. Same with lambda and rho, with rho being in the direction of the maximum value.

In every math book the 2-d coordinate system I know of, this is non-disputed.
-infinity to +infinity is from left to right, and from bottom to top.

only in countries used to write from right to left or bottom to top this might be reversed, however what is called min and what is max really doesn't matter.
Only in some joint operation of people from either camp it might be a bit confusing.

[alkaline]

As for the terms ana and kata, I have nothing wrong with delta and upsilon, but these terms are short and less confusing. Too many greek letter tend to befuddle the layman, IMHO. I also like "tridth" because it's short and unique. There are already too many 4-D terms beginning with "tetra". If you want to eliminate "tri", how about simply saying "tradth"?

The problem is when you generalize to the wide & thin terms you get "trade" for the wide term, which interferes in my mind with the already existing word. How about this for a try:

width/length -> trength
wide/long -> trong
narrow/short -> tarrow

[alkaline]

"furthest ana" shall be known as "apos" (from "apex") and "furthest kata" shall be known as "zakos" (from "zenith kata"). I hereby also decree that the comparative forms shall be "anner" and "kater".

I approve of these. If no one else has any problem with them, we shall make them official.

[alkaline]

reintroducing the thridth to stand for tetridth is really a bad idea, counting characters the difference is only one (so what's the problem(?)).
personally I like to make thing simple, and thus everything based on the number 4.
If you get tired of tetra, note the other series where 4 is denoted as quatro,
when I would ponder about a tetronian novel, I would make "tetra" female and "quatro" male (or vice versa)
Though Emily in her Quadruplex (ie tetronian dwelling) in Tetrapol (a tetronian city) can nurture her Quint (tetronian male toddler) while her Trint (tetronian daughter) is visiting her Quand (tetronian husband) in Quadrupol (an other tetronian city)

(though note Quint is here a bad idea because of the resemblence of this series '5', but somewhere along these lines)

btw, it's tridth, not thridth - and it's more a matter of the syllable count, not the number of letters that is important, at least to me. I tend to agree with Oren - too many terms beginning with "tetra" isn't desirable, because then all these terms begin with the same thing. When reading fast i tend to concentrate on the beginning of the words and this would cause a problem.

That's an interesting idea, using the roots tetra- and quatro- to denote male/female, or more generally two values of a binary relationship.

Tetrapol - i like it.

[Aale de Winkel]

btw, it's tridth, not thridth - and it's more a matter of the syllable count, not the number of letters that is important, at least to me. I tend to agree with Oren - too many terms beginning with "tetra" isn't desirable, because then all these terms begin with the same thing. When reading fast i tend to concentrate on the beginning of the words and this would cause a problem.

That's an interesting idea, using the roots tetra- and quatro- to denote male/female, or more generally two values of a binary relationship.

Tetrapol - i like it.

All I know is that tridth confuses the hell out of me while tetridth is immediately clear.
If the amounts of tetra's becomes too many, how come you like tetrapol(?)

But yeh, dutch linguist seems to be able to use more then one pan to make one pancake henche "pannenkoek", I haven't the faintest how to accomplish this (hi hi)

[Oren]

Here's another imponderable. If you had a realm which gradually sloped into a 4-D funnel at the center, what would it look like?

In the Intense and Otter Island multiverses, the apos and zakos realms are shaped like this. I am considering writing a story in which an expedition goes down into the zakos funnel only to discover that because of the extreme curvature of space (I know it's not actually space that's curving, but that's the simplest way to say it) their ship begins to dissolve into a 4-D cloud.

[alkaline]

All I know is that tridth confuses the hell out of me while tetridth is immediately clear.
If the amounts of tetra's becomes too many, how come you like tetrapol(?)

But yeh, dutch linguist seems to be able to use more then one pan to make one pancake henche "pannenkoek", I haven't the faintest how to accomplish this (hi hi)

i dunno why i like tetrapol, maybe because of the unique "pol" ending

in any case, what do you think of the terms i mentioned earlier (repeated here for convenience)?

width/length -> trength
wide/long -> trong
narrow/short -> tarrow

[Polycell]

Privately I used the term "omniverse" as the space enclosing all "universes", (used this for a funny sci-fi story for sci-fi presents for my nephew). I had my nephews and niece travel around that 'omniverse" using "star-gates" (a la Buck Rogers).

The term omniverse was coined by the late Mark Gruenwald, former editor for Marvel Comics, when he was a comic-book fan magazine publisher back in the 1970s. In fact, one of the fanzines he published was titled Omniverse. He needed a term for the space of all the universes that form the backgrounds against which the stories in superhero and science-fiction comic books are told. An individual comic-book publisher’s stories all take place within a single universe, except those stories specifically designated as taking place in alternative universes. The totality of alternative universes of a particular publisher he called a multiverse. The omniverse was then the space of all multiverses.

[Oren]

Another name for the omniverse is "tellurian".

[Aale de Winkel]

i dunno why i like tetrapol, maybe because of the unique "pol" ending

in any case, what do you think of the terms i mentioned earlier (repeated here for convenience)?

width/length -> trength
wide/long -> trong
narrow/short -> tarrow

Well eh, Metropolis is the town of superman as you know, there is where I got it.

In case you mean them (trength etc) as terms for the tetra-direction, go ahead, you mono syllabist seems to like shortening the more obvious. Tertronian new-speak it is to me (hi hi)

Perhaps it is time to start some polling these new terms.
just start a tetronian dictonairy, and allow for synonymic terms. Especially when we create tetronian literature, some "linguistic paint" is needed to fill whatever "canvas" we are writing on!

[Aale de Winkel]

The term omniverse was coined by the late Mark Gruenwald, former editor for Marvel Comics, when he was a comic-book fan magazine publisher back in the 1970s. In fact, one of the fanzines he published was titled Omniverse. He needed a term for the space of all the universes that form the backgrounds against which the stories in superhero and science-fiction comic books are told. An individual comic-book publisher’s stories all take place within a single universe, except those stories specifically designated as taking place in alternative universes. The totality of alternative universes of a particular publisher he called a multiverse. The omniverse was then the space of all multiverses.

Nice to know this, actually "omniverse" wasn't too fixed by the couple of "parcel night stories" I wrote, it could as likely be the enclosure of "multiverses". My family could freely move among them.

[Aale de Winkel]

rereading the glossary, I get confused with the many directional terms.
especially with those denoted by the greek letters, using my vector notation I currently understand:

left: <-1,0,0,0>
right: <1,0,0,0>
down: <0,-1,0,0>
up: <0,1,0,0>
backward: <0,0,-1,0>
forward: <0,0,1,0>
zant: <0,0,0,-1> (same as ana(?))
wint: <0,0,0,1> (same as kata(?))

that is the 4th dimension introduces only 2 directions the "chart under delta" suggest 6(!??)

I also haven't the foggiest what the 3 space analogon are of the terms
north, east, south and west. zant and wint might serve this purpose in 4-space, while ana and kata serve as left and right.
thus a traveler might go south-zant to zant, with the wind blowing from south-wint. John is sitting just to the ana of Mary.

ie some directional series to a more absolute reference frame: north, south, east, west , ?? , ?? , zant, wint. And one series corresponding to a relative (personal) frame: left, right , ..... , ana, kata.

Note I used "more absolute" in stead of "absolute", your vertical direction is quite different from mine, due to the sphere we stand on, as well as what you call east and west. North and South we might (in a sense) as the same direction. (no doubt you catch my drift)

[alkaline]

that is the 4th dimension introduces only 2 directions the "chart under delta" suggest 6(!??)

I should explain that more in the glossary - only one set of 2 terms is used from that chart at any given time. The set used depends on the perspective of the 4d object from realmspace - which direction was "shaved off" when the object was intersected into realmspace. For example, if it is dropped down and thus we are viewing a horizontal intersection, then the two 4d terms used for the 4d directions are "upsilon" and "delta" (for up and down).

I also haven't the foggiest what the 3 space analogon are of the terms
north, east, south and west. zant and wint might serve this purpose in 4-space, while ana and kata serve as left and right.

marp and garp are for the purpose of the two extra cardinal directions. They were invented by Polyhedron Dude, so he could fill us in on a more precise meaning than i have in the glossary. I shall go through the glossary and provide the vectors for each of the directions so that they are easier to compare. I'm pretty sure all of your vectors are correct. I'm actually not sure which terms ana and kata are equivalent to.

zant and wint can't serve this purpose because they are relative directions, and north/south/etc are absolute directions. I think ana and kata as used are directions out of 3d space into 4d space. Btw, my terms lambda and rho are equivalent to wint and zant (respectively).

[Aale de Winkel]

From the glossary it simply is not clear which terms are the absolute and which are the relative directional term, I'mnot partial to the current existing multidimensional literature, so I just picked zant and wint because they sounded more absolute then kata and ana which already met their derivative kater and anner. I don't know what can be souther then south etc.

For the glossary aside from the technical linguistic terms you might include some samlifying sentences. I know a bit of the technical linguistic terminology but sample lines might make things more clear.

[alkaline]

that's a good idea, i'll provide some sample sentences. Sometime i also want to provide example drawings too, but i don't know when i'll be able to do that.