Time the negative dimension

Discussion of theories involving time as a dimension, time travel, relativity, branes, and so on, usually applying to the "real" universe which we live in.

Time the negative dimension

Postby JosephM » Tue Feb 03, 2004 3:52 pm

Uniniated in the debates between time or tetraspace as the fourth dimension I did come upon a possible theory for the dimension of time.

It is known that a point, having position without magnitude, is the 0-Dimension. A line having both position and magnitude without height (or width) is the 1-Dimension. A square containing magnitude, position, and height is the 2-Dimension. A cube with magnitude, position, height, and width is the 3-Dimension. Analogically time cannot be the fourth dimension as it has no magnitude, height, or any other such references, thus causing it to be something referenced by. I therefore propose that time with its lack of position or magnitude, thus lowering it on the scale of dimensions below the 0-D would logically set it at the -1-D or perhaps the >0-D, meaning less than the zero dimension.

Any comments or rebuttals?
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Postby Geosphere » Tue Feb 03, 2004 4:27 pm

Time has absolutely nothing to do with dimensionality. The speed of an object does not change dimensionality as we know it.

In truth, time, and the measurement of it, is a man imposed concept, and simply created for us to understand motion.

By your definition, thought also qualifies as a dimension less than 0.
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Postby alkaline » Tue Feb 03, 2004 10:08 pm

dimensions less than zero are simply absurd. We use positive numbers when we are talking about dimensions because we are counting how many there are. You can't count objects negatively/backwards unless you are removing them. You can't remove beyond nothing.
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Postby RQ » Wed Feb 04, 2004 5:58 pm

Why would the lack of time be a negative dimension?
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Postby alkaline » Wed Feb 04, 2004 6:04 pm

who said that? All I said was that if you have 4 dimensions, and you remove a dimension, you are left with 3. You could also say you "added" "-1" dimensions. That's really the only possible definition of a negative dimension.
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Postby PWrong » Thu Feb 05, 2004 9:27 am

Time is often described as extra dimension, but dimensions shouldn't really be given numbers, because they can go in any order.

Sometimes squares have length and width, and sometimes length and height. Sometimes a plane is shown as a graph, where the axes can be anything from time, to money, to apples. Anything that can be measured can be called a dimension mathematically, but in this sort of discussion it only really makes sense to talk about spatial dimensions.
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Postby Aale de Winkel » Thu Feb 05, 2004 10:44 am

In the relativity theory's 4-vectors I viewed time as an imaginairy dimension, often multiplied by c to transform 'time' into a 'length', and multiplied by i (= root(-1)), as the zeroth element of those 4-vectors.

My dealings with magic hypercubes, makes it necessairy to associate numbers with the axes. I make a great tool to pintpoint exactly what hypercube one is dealing with and what "aspectial variant" one talks about.
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Postby Geosphere » Thu Feb 05, 2004 12:21 pm

PWrong wrote:length and width, and sometimes length and height.


The words don't mean anything. They cound have shniggle and meep and it would still be 2 dimensional. How that dimension is viewed from the third changes what we call it in our inability to refer to a second dimension without reference to the third.
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Postby PWrong » Fri Feb 06, 2004 12:14 pm

That's what I meant. It doesn't matter what we call it. The only important thing is the number of dimensions.
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Postby RQ » Fri Feb 06, 2004 6:02 pm

Actually there is an order if you add gravity. Height, forward, and left and right
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Postby Geosphere » Fri Feb 06, 2004 9:14 pm

Wouldnt it be width, height, depth? That's why its written x,y,z.
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Postby RQ » Fri Feb 06, 2004 11:21 pm

No because if you have matter that attracts you will have gravity which will pull you down. In fact it might be any dimension, but gravity will make it seem like it's height, so it's all relative.
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Postby PWrong » Sat Feb 07, 2004 4:38 am

Gravity doesn't pull you down. It pulls you inwards, towards the Earth.

The number of dimensions is just the minimum number of coordinates needed to describe an object's position. So, including time, we can call them the (1st,2nd,3rd,4th) dimensions or the (0th,1st,2nd,3rd) dimensions and still mean the same thing.

The only important thing is the total number of dimensions. Time is different from a spatial dimension in some ways, although it can be described as one.

btw Geosphere, height and depth are the same dimension, like up and down.
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Postby Geosphere » Sat Feb 07, 2004 6:09 am

Height is Y, up and down
Depth is Z, in and out.

Dont think height of building, depth of ocean, thats not what it means. These are drafting terms. Think Depth Percetion.
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Postby RQ » Sat Feb 07, 2004 6:53 am

Yes, I mean perspective is all that matters, and the only relevant part would be to how you perceive it.
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Postby PWrong » Mon Feb 09, 2004 1:26 pm

Ok, you're right. But I still don't think time can be called 0D, because all that matters is the total number of dimensions.
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Postby alkaline » Mon Feb 09, 2004 2:25 pm

yeah it doesn't really make sense to call *any* dimension the zeroth dimension. That's why the zeroth dimension is called that: it has *no* dimension! Thus, when you say you have 0d, 1d, 2d, 3d, and 4d, you still only have 4 dimensions.
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zero dimensions or less

Postby whiteonriceboy » Thu Feb 12, 2004 2:40 am

What would the 'less than zeroeth' dimension be? All that a OD object has is location. If the dimension were less than zero, it would not even have location. Would this be the state in which something is everywhere, where it is not limited to even a location, or would it be nothingness. Or maybe could this be less than nothing, antimatter perhaps (black holes?).
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Postby whiteonriceboy » Thu Feb 12, 2004 2:42 am

wait, sorry. a black hole is of course not antimatter, it's too much matter a.k.a. a lot of gravity.
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Postby Aale de Winkel » Thu Feb 12, 2004 6:32 am

PWrong wrote:Ok, you're right. But I still don't think time can be called 0D, because all that matters is the total number of dimensions.


0d is nill space, the void and empty real lowest space dimension.
In calculations though time (or rather times c the speed of light), in the zeroth slot of the space time 4-vector, and so might revered to as the zeroth dimension with respect to these 4-vectors.

dimension 0 is quite another matter as said for me this is nill space.

negative dimensions, if anything there might be some mathematical sense in making this anti-matter space, and as such merely a description (I don't know wether such is possible) the real dimension will of course be positive.

negative time is a real (temporal) direction, though we probably won't ever travel that way, despite several sci-fi's. As startrek "warp-speeds" it is very unlikely ever achieved (though no physics law is irrefutable, some future boy/girl might come up with replacements)

Currently I think someone might invent some gravity generator to bend space in such a manner that travel to other planets is possible, this is more likely then whatever real travel beyond the speed of light. Startrek warp speed might be some apllication of the above gravity generator in calculating the "inner bend space" one travels slowly against the "outer normal space". This way the warp speed wouldn't violate the current laws of physics as I know them.
That "gravity generator" would create a "worm hole" (which might be viewable as a kind of black hole, so I don't know whether a black hole is too much matter, it is just a lot of gravity, by whatever means (natural or otherwise) generated, a black hole might be a gateway onto a white one where everthing the black hole sucks up is spit out again, as such the black hole is the mouth of a worm hole, and the white the worm hole's rear end. As such a natural space bending, and a nature provided way of going to distant places)
pe scifi series: Thunderstone and Farscape use these kind of principles and also Buck Rogers "Star Gates" are some kind of "gravity generating" devices.

just some thoughts of various items above I spotted.
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