Questions, many questions...well, more like four.

[The Spunk Jockey]

alright, my knowledge is this area is very, very minimal, so don't get mad if my questions seem absurd.

first off, in a 2d world, would fred even really be able to see lines? if a line is infinitely thin it technically wouldn't exist, right? like, in math when you draw a line from say, point a to point b, the pencil mark is just a symbol of what is only there in theory, since the line has no defined width or anything. what i mean is, things need to have at least both length and width to exist right? even subatomic particles and what not have some sort of mass.

secondly, fred can only really see lines on like a y-axis, right? if he can only see what's right in front of him in a 2d world, then nothing would have visible depth. if he can see depth, then if he looked at a corner where a floor meets a wall then he could see a 90 degree angle, and if he could see that he could imagine the other three corners of the room and imagine a 2d square as we see it on a piece of paper.

thirdly, would a 2d world and 4d world be bound to completely different physics than our own? like all the matter that exists in our universe in 3d, and the shapes and arrangements of all this matter is really quite important, like the way an amino acid is organized makes a certain kind of protein. so my question really is, is there like a planespace "atom" and a tetraspace "atom"?

and fourth, kinda following up my last question, would it even be theoretically possible to pass into another dimension? i already read the thread that said something about fred coming into realmspace and his guts falling out all over the floor, but his entire existence in realmspace would be impossible if he had a molecular structure than really doesn't exist or can't exist in our world.

and fifth and final, is it also possible that our dimension is just made up of the other dimensions? like, when protons and neutrons are split into to quarks, quarks can supposedly be split into strings, which are apparently just points and lines in space, and don't have depth or width or anything. i read that somewhere...i wish i could find the source...also, and again i can't provide a source for this information, einstein's theory of time travel, along with many others, suggests that the closer you get to the speed of light the more time slows down and distance shrinks, and when you reach the speed of light, time would stop and distance would be like an infinitely small point. then, if you exceed the speed of light time flows backward and distance/space does something i never really understood, but since space-time has been referred to as the 4th dimension, and this "inverted" space is somewhat incomprehensible, that could be it.

sorry i had to play the time travel card, i'm just inquisitive.

replies will be much appreciated.[/i]

[alkaline]

alright, my knowledge is this area is very, very minimal, so don't get mad if my questions seem absurd.

Hey, no problem :-) Welcome to the forum!

first off, in a 2d world, would fred even really be able to see lines? if a line is infinitely thin it technically wouldn't exist, right? like, in math when you draw a line from say, point a to point b, the pencil mark is just a symbol of what is only there in theory, since the line has no defined width or anything. what i mean is, things need to have at least both length and width to exist right? even subatomic particles and what not have some sort of mass.

When you say that someone "sees" lines, that doesn't mean the line actually exists - it describes the dimensionality of his vision. For a being to see a particular object, either the object has to block light, produce light, or reflect light. So something that had length and even barely any thickness in the second dimension would perform this, and Fred would see it. A long enough line could block all of Fred's field of view. A plane blocks our field of view, and thus we can see planes easily. It would only need a slight amount of thickness in order for it to actually exist. The thinner a line is, the harder it is for us to see it. The shorter a line is (the more like a dot it is), the harder it is for Fred to see it.

secondly, fred can only really see lines on like a y-axis, right? if he can only see what's right in front of him in a 2d world, then nothing would have visible depth. if he can see depth, then if he looked at a corner where a floor meets a wall then he could see a 90 degree angle, and if he could see that he could imagine the other three corners of the room and imagine a 2d square as we see it on a piece of paper.

We don't see in realms, even though our universe is 3d. We see planes. We only get depth through the use of our second eye; our brain reconstructs the depth for us. So for Fred, he could see depth if he had two eyes, because his brain would reconstruct it for him.

thirdly, would a 2d world and 4d world be bound to completely different physics than our own? like all the matter that exists in our universe in 3d, and the shapes and arrangements of all this matter is really quite important, like the way an amino acid is organized makes a certain kind of protein. so my question really is, is there like a planespace "atom" and a tetraspace "atom"?

Well, an atom is just a fundamental unit of matter (separable into parts through more recent physics). I think that it doesn't matter what dimension you're in, there will be a fundamental unit of matter. I think it makes sense to call them atoms. The way atoms are built up would be much different in the different dimensions, though.

and fourth, kinda following up my last question, would it even be theoretically possible to pass into another dimension? i already read the thread that said something about fred coming into realmspace and his guts falling out all over the floor, but his entire existence in realmspace would be impossible if he had a molecular structure than really doesn't exist or can't exist in our world.

Yeah, it's probably not possible, so that's why i like to make up rules for a universe where it is possible :-)

and fifth and final, is it also possible that our dimension is just made up of the other dimensions? like, when protons and neutrons are split into to quarks, quarks can supposedly be split into strings, which are apparently just points and lines in space, and don't have depth or width or anything. i read that somewhere...i wish i could find the source...

String theory, M-theory, etc.

also, and again i can't provide a source for this information, einstein's theory of time travel, along with many others, suggests that the closer you get to the speed of light the more time slows down and distance shrinks, and when you reach the speed of light, time would stop and distance would be like an infinitely small point. then, if you exceed the speed of light time flows backward and distance/space does something i never really understood, but since space-time has been referred to as the 4th dimension, and this "inverted" space is somewhat incomprehensible, that could be it.

That could be what?