The lobster Cage theory

[4thdeminsionists]

The lobster cage theory atempts to explain how our universe came to be. The way it works, is our universe started out with no matter. Our universe just didn't exsist. Matter orignitated in the fourth dimension. Matter kept expanding until it created a rift, between the 3rd and 4th dimension. Matter then came into our universe and was trapped because it couldn't go back through the rift. Thus a lobster cage effect.

This is the outlines of a new theory, and please critize and find errors. If you need more info please post.

[jinydu]

Is there any way to test and verify this theory? If not, you have a major flaw right there.

[Twix18]

ok explain for me if you will what the 5 basic demontions are... up down left right, in out.. time... and unless you mean to say that there was a rift in time and in out or up and down... there is no theory, no way to prove it and certianly no logic behind it.

and what does it have to do with lobsters?

[4thdeminsionists]

What exactly are you asking?


(it has nothing to do with lobsters, matter just gets trapped in our dimension, like the way lobsters get trapped in lobster cages)

[4thdeminsionists]

oh and jinydu, is there any way to test and verify any theory involving the 4th dimension

[pat]

I have trouble with phrases like "originated in the fourth dimension" and "created a rift, between the 3rd and 4th dimension".

What would it be like if matter had "originated in the third dimension" and then there came to be "a rift, between the 2nd and 3rd dimension".

The way that such phrases usually make sense to me at all are that I tell myself: "What they meant to say was something more like: 'matter originated some distance off in the fourth dimension'. At some point, it bumped into our three-space and either stayed or carried us along with it."

But, that doesn't help me in most "creation of the universe" scenarios because we wouldn't have had a 3-space yet. We'd have been created wherever the matter was. There wasn't some need for a rift.

Another way that I could try to make sense out of these statements is that the laws of matter originally required something very different then Minkowski space-time (R^1,3). Then, for some reason or other, the physics collapsed (expanded?) into what we know as space-time. This only helps a little bit. The "started out with no matter" has an implication that our space-time existed even though there was nothing in it. Unless particle-antiparticle annihilation was already going on in this otherwise empty space-time, then I'm not really clear on how one could actually say it was there.

Another way altogether that I try to make sense out of this is to think that there might have been a whole separate universe of some number of dimensions that only intersected with ours briefly. But, something about our space-time really sucked in the matter (or something about their Universe really pushed it in). (Nature abhors a vacuum :twisted: ).

So... how am I to interpret the lobster trap thing?

[wendy]

Matter that lives in 4d is four-dimensional. It doesn't suddenly loose a dimension because it hits the floor. When you think of it, it's like saying "matter is created in two dimensions from three dimensions when i drop a bottle of milk".

No, it is better to look for a source of three-dimensional matter in three dimensions: not four or eight or eleven.

There's nothing special about four dimensions. It's not a "place", but a different universe where the rules of E4 applies. It still has time and gravity and such like, and one can readily appreciate that neither the geometry or the physics of E4 is E3 plus an extra dimension.

For instance, there is no cross-product. So eddies, magnetic fields etc all have to look for something else to make them tick. But if things are relatively small scale, one does not have to worry about inverse-cube laws to get a relatively uniform gravity over the lengt of a couple of hundred feet. That is, gravity for the tetrobours [4d dwellers] is very much like it is for us (a constant g over a fairly large scale).

But on the other hand, things like the siderial day, the risings of the stars etc do differ, which is why you have to look very closely at how the mathematics etc works.

W

[jinydu]

oh and jinydu, is there any way to test and verify any theory involving the 4th dimension

If you mean "any theory involving a fourth spatial dimension", then pretty much no, at least for the time being. I think that's a good reason why they shouldn't be called theories, at least not yet. Time and again, I've heard the same mistake over and over again. In science, a theory is not a hunch, not some vague idea that someone happened to dream up. Instead, it is a precise framework for describing/explaining some aspect of the universe that is built up logically from a few fundamental axioms and has been rigorously tested many times, and found to be in accordance with experimental results.

[PWrong]

Just out of curiosity, what kind of products are there in the 4th dimension?

I guess the obvious one would be the product of three vectors specifying a fourth.

Can two vectors specify a plane?

[jinydu]

Well, there is an obvious generalization for the dot product. My math professor says that in order to generalize the cross product, you need something called an "inner product" (if I remember correctly, which I might not), which I won't see until much later in my math education.

[pat]

Well, there is an obvious generalization for the dot product. My math professor says that in order to generalize the cross product, you need something called an "inner product" (if I remember correctly, which I might not), which I won't see until much later in my math education.

The dot product is an inner product. You can use an "outer product" to generalize the cross product.

[wendy]

A vector = product of three vectors exists, ie cross(a,b,c), and the dot product exists in all forms (as it does in 3d)

[RQ]

Doesn't this also kind of contradic the 2nd law of thermodynamics? But then it could be that the law only works after the big bang imploded.

[wendy]

Much of the big bang happened before the laws of thermodynamics were passed. They are therefore exempt.

In reality, the laws of thermodynamics holds to closed systems.

A star becomes hot by infall due to gravity, and becomes a chaotic system.

A plant is not a closed system. It uses infall from outside the system (ie the star), to make energy. That's how we can come to exist where we would not in a closed system. We live on a tiny slice of an enormous chaotic system, infalling into our environment. There are means to organise this, and recycle it.

[RMac2k5]

I have a question that I've always asked about the big bang theory. For the big bang theory to be true matter and energy had to have been created at some time in the history of the universe, but according to our common knowledge of physics, neither matter nor energy can be created nor destroyed, only changed. With this being put on the table, how possibly can this theory even maintain any validity in the science world?

[jinydu]

That's a good question.

The leading idea is that the Big Bang was caused by a quantum energy fluctuation. According to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

^E * ^t >= h/4pi
(where the ^ means "uncertainty in". Please excuse the lack of proper mathematical symbols on this board.)

To their surprise, physicists, upon performing very precise experimental measurements, managed to detect energy being created and destroyed in the vacuum on very small time scales. Within a tiny fraction of a second, this energy was "repaid". These "energy fluctuations" are random, but their magnitude is given by the Uncertainty Principle. Since h is so incredibly small, these fluctuations are negligible on everyday scales and can only be detected using very powerful technology.

Many physicists think that the Big Bang occured in this way. Over a very small time interval, there was a very large energy fluctuation that caused the Big Bang.

I have to admit though that since I have only finished one year as an undergraduate at University, I haven't yet studied quantum mechanics in detail, let alone it's application to the Big Bang theory. Thus, I can't precisely comment on how this theory works; what I wrote above was just a "watered-down" explanation and certainly doesn't give the full picture.

[PWrong]

These "energy fluctuations" are random, but their magnitude is given by the Uncertainty Principle. Since h is so incredibly small, these fluctuations are negligible on everyday scales and can only be detected using very powerful technology.

Many physicists think that the Big Bang occured in this way. Over a very small time interval, there was a very large energy fluctuation that caused the Big Bang.

On that note, I read in New Scientist that someone calculated the exact probability of this happening. It's something like 1 in 10^(10^100).
So there's actually a chance that the big bang is happening again, right now in your fridge.

[jinydu]

On that note, I read in New Scientist that someone calculated the exact probability of this happening. It's something like 1 in 10^(10^100).
So there's actually a chance that the big bang is happening again, right now in your fridge.

I've heard something like this before, but I wouldn't take the number too seriously (other than to note that it is very, very small). After all, I doubt that a claim like that will ever be tested experimentally :wink: .