Where is the 4th dimension

[Xminent]

Lets just said there is other dimensions.
Does anyone have any ideas where they would be at or how we can travels there?

If u have any ideas please reply.

[houserichichi]

Wellllll, depends on the context you're talking about. I'm sure you've heard of string theory requiring the six other dimensions being curled up into little "balls" at every point in space. You may have heard of our universe existing within a higher dimensional space, so that the extra dimensions would be "beyond" the boundary of the known universe. You may have heard of Kaluza Klein theory which requires five spacetime dimensions, where the extra one is curled up into a little circle at the Planck scale. Whether any of these theories proves to be testable with current technology remains to be seen, but for now those are some ideas of extra physical dimensions.

[RQ]

I wouldn't be too quick uncurling those dimensions. Thonk of the consequences!

Anyway, I think he's referring to a higher dimensional plane other than this one, beside the curled ones. Well, sorry but from what can be observed you have to use Occam's razor to cut out all unobservable events, and remember that you cannot travel across the 4th SPATIAL dimension because you wouldn't exist with respect to it and virtually die a very unimaginable death. That or you just get wiped out of existence.

[pat]

I don't understand or agree with the idea that if we tried to travel in the 4th SPATIAL Dimension that we'd die or annihilate or what-have-you.

As for the original question, if there is a 4th spatial dimension then we wouldn't have to go somewhere to get to it. We'd simply have to turn to face that direction. How do we get to West? We don't. We turn to face it. We move in that direction. We don't go there.

Now, as for how to turn that direction, I must admit that all of coordination and perception have developed believing there are three dimensions. And, I'm about as capable of facing kata as I am of smelling with my ear lobes. But, I'm working on it.

[Xminent]

and remember that you cannot travel across the 4th SPATIAL dimension because you wouldn't exist with respect to it and virtually die a very unimaginable death. That or you just get wiped out of existence.??

I dont get it[/quote]

[houserichichi]

I see no reason that we would die if we travelled in four spatial dimensions...think, for example, if we were flat and lived in two dimensions. Getting pulled out of our plane and into 3-space wouldn't kill us, it would just be us getting pulled an infinite number of alternate planes. I would assume we can survive in other planes, so why shouldn't we, as three dimensional beings, be able to exist in the corresponding hyperspace comprised of an infinite number of 3-spaces?

[Geosphere]

Getting pulled out of our plane and into 3-space wouldn't kill us

Says who?

[houserichichi]

Well if there's no reason to suspect it would (at least none I can see), why would we assume it? If A. Square can be pulled out of Flatland and live, why can't we be pulled out of space and survive? Three-space would still be a subspace of the higher one we'd be in...

I don't know what the physics of a five dimensional spacetime would be like (never thought of studying it), but I can't see it being our ultimate demise for any obvious reasons at least. I suppose it also depends how long we intend on leaving 3-space...if it's only briefly maybe it'll be like a fish out of water. I have no idea...just no obvious reason.

[pat]

My take on this is that if there are more than three dimensions, then we're already in them. So, there'd be no harm in translating a fourth direction. If there aren't more than three dimensions, then no one can pull us anyway.

[RQ]

I see no reason that we would die if we travelled in four spatial dimensions...think, for example, if we were flat and lived in two dimensions. Getting pulled out of our plane and into 3-space wouldn't kill us, it would just be us getting pulled an infinite number of alternate planes. I would assume we can survive in other planes, so why shouldn't we, as three dimensional beings, be able to exist in the corresponding hyperspace comprised of an infinite number of 3-spaces?

a 2D object's volume with respect to a 3D universe is 0.

[houserichichi]

That's true, but it still has a 2-D volume, namely area. If we get "yanked" into 4-space we'd still have a 3D volume, but not a 4D equivalent...unless I've got a one dimensional tail I can't see

[PWrong]

If the 4th dimension exists, then the big question is not, "how do we get out of our 3-space?", but "why haven't we fallen out already?".

If some force could pull us out, then some other force would have already done so, like a 4D gravity.

There's two possible solutions. Either we're being held to our universe by some force (which would mean that space must be actually composed of something, like the "ether"), or we live on a giant "3-brane" (like a membrane). This is another idea from string theory.

A 3-brane is very small in tridth (probably planck length sized), and is simply space where matter can exist. It may be close to other 3-branes, but not adjacent, so you can't just fall into one. Supposedly whenever they collide, they produce a big bang.

This theory isn't very satisfying, because I don't see why the branes themselves should "move", through something that has even less "existance" than space itself. It immediately suggests the question, where did the branes come from anyway?

There are other possibilities though. I may have heard these somewhere else, but I'm not sure.

We could just be stretched out into the fourth dimension, without anything actually being different. For instance, if Fred was drawn on thick cardboard rather than infinitely thin paper, and the ink soaked through, he would be 3D, but he wouldn't notice anything.

It could be that matter holds us to our current realm, using gravity or some other force, but that a vacuum could in fact have more than 3 dimensions. Maybe if we cancel out the matter with antimatter, the dimensions would expand.

[cedrec]

It's in the past, and i'm serious.

[PWrong]

Are you suggesting time is the fourth dimension?:x

As we've discussed plenty of times, time is different to space, so it can't be called a spatial dimension. You shouldn't really number the dimensions anyway, because they don't come in any order. "The fourth dimension" is a simple (if slightly naive) way to describe "a space with four dimensions".

Incidentally, New Scientist recently announced that astronomers have found direct evidence for string theory.

[collyn]

You all were talking about whether someone would die if they were pulled into the forth dimension. I think that you probably would. The way I see it, if a 2 dimensional being was pulled into our 3rd dimension, they might end up leaving some internal organs behind. If we tried to pick them up into our dimension we may only end up grabbing thier "skin" for example. Think of a 2-d circular being with a square inside. Say the square inside represents the beings "heart" and the circle is the "skin". If we were to pick up that circle by the edge and into the 3rd dimension, we might just pull the circle up leaving the square behind, ultimately seperating the "heart" from the circle, causing death. Perhaps it would be the same for us. Perhaps if our body were to try movement in a forth dimensional direction, we wouldn't hold together, because we arent meant to.

[PWrong]

yes, I think that's probably right. More specifically, individual atoms would probably break apart, so our death should hopefully be quick and painless.

[houserichichi]

Why couldn't a 4-d being simply "scoop us up" from underneath similar to us lifting something flat off the surface of a lake? I suppose it's all dependent on both how the individual gets "taken away" into 4-space and how the fundamental forces work there. In the example of a 2-d being having his "skin" ripped off, that's assuming that the forces holding the particles together in his "body" aren't strong enough to just "follow" the skin into 4-space, wouldn't anyone agree?

Also, as far as evidence for string theory, Dr. Michio Kaku had this to say in late December of '04

Will it ever be possible for physicists to ever prove the existence of superstrings?

DrMichioKaku: Experimentally, yes. In 2012, LISA goes into orbit. LISA is a gravity wave detector in space, 3 milion miles across, so sensitive it will detect gravity waves from the big bang itself. Various cosmological theories make definite predictions about the nature of gravity waves emitted from the big bang. LISA should beable to prove or disprove inflation, and various M theory cosmologies that have been proposed. But personally, I think string theory can be proven or disproven using pure thought. If I could solve the theory completely, it should then be obvious whether it predicts the Standard Model,, with all its quarks and leptons. Hence, perhaps any day, someone might prove or disprove string theory using pure math.

[Rkyeun]

There is no 'fourth dimension' that we can survive in.
We can detect this lack of dimension due to the fact that light falls off at an inverse square rate and not an inverse cube. If there were more dimensions, there would be more spreading, thusly light cannot push through to the fourth dimension that does not exist (for us). If we were turned to face kata, the physics that bind our bodies together would cease, likewise unable to penetrate into a universe where falloff is inverse-cubic.

If the force causing us to rotate kata instead could take some of the universe with it to preserve our physics, we might survive until we rotate so far kata that the physics start to break down...
Welcome to the event horizon of a black hole. Abandon all hope, ye who go kata from here.

[PWrong]

But the forces holding us together are somehow confined to our realm, like matter itself. If we were removed from our realm, maybe photons and gluons would go off in all directions. Forces that follow an inverse square law would suddenly follow an inverse cube law.

Also, if you "scooped up" Fred, you'd have to keep him flat, or you'd drastically change the curvature of the space containing him, (not neccessarily causing gravity, but any kind of curvature could have an effect).


It's odd that Michio Kaku didn't mention the latest discovery. :?

On the 8th of Dcember, New Scientist revealed that astronomers had found a region of space that was full of double galaxies, (the same galaxy appears in two different positions). This can be caused by gravitational lensing, but there's too many of them. There's also a quasar with oscillating brightness or something.

But apparently the strings left over from the big bang can become very large, and distort the space around it. And an extremely large thread of pure energy would create the appearance of double galaxies and strange quasars.

Brian Greene described this as a faint possibility in the Elegant Universe, and he also quoted Ed Witten,

Although somewhat fanciful, this is my favourite scenario for confirming string theory as nothing would settle the issue
quite as dramatically as seeing a string in a telescope.

And now they've really found one.

[wendy]

Imagine drawing a character on a page. How does it leave the page? What use its senses, designed for the fabric of the page, in air. Its muscles would make no sense, because it is no longer restricted to the fabric of space. It could, crumple up or get rolled up, and for it it makes no sense. Its organs would just drop out, because there is nothing to hold it.

So we to are in 4D.

Instead, make the trips in the mind.

[Rkyeun]

A 4D figure -cannot- pick us up. Its fingers are too big, and it has no way to compress them small enough to not let us slip through its grasp.

We will pass directly through its fundamental particles without interacting, for our charges and forces take effect for zero duration as we pass through, and his forces and particles interact constantly with us at zero strength due to the spreading through an extra dimension.

Indeed, I doubt it could properly percieve us.

It can make 3D drawings of us on its hyperpaper, but even then only percieves them because the residue of its hyperpencil is 4D itself.

We cannot see 2D objects, or interact with them, but we can make drawings of them to further our understanding.

There are no hard and fast rules for your organs falling out or your particles scattering under inverse cubic laws because it cannot be done. Any hypothetical which attempts to bypass this must also define these rules in order to make temporary sense.