dimensional understanding

[YT2095]

yet ANOTHER idea occured to me.

many threads are about understanding the 4`th dimension and above (I don`t and can`t guess beyond the 4).

how about a trick that often helped me in trying to understand things called: Reverse Engineering I`m sure EVERYONES heard of that by now).

here`s a way to MAYBE look at things....

 

we know of our 3d world, height, width, depth. How about trying to Imagine a a 2D world, and what must a 3D being (like us) seem like to our hypothetical 2D inhabitants?

 

I live on a peice of an infinately thin sheet of paper, I have all the space in the world! (MY world). I can go left i can go right, I can go as fast as I like and in all these directions I want to, even little spirals if I choose

 

sounds crazy I know but look at it from a 2D perspective and never having known any different for your entire life (nor you ancestors).

 

now YOU come along, yes YOU as you are now, a 3D entity and put your hand through this paper... 4 near circles (your fingers) enter this 2D guys veiw!, 4 different objects appear! and it will take time for him to travel between each, but all are there

you push your hand in slowly and all 4 become 1 BIG object!

 

you then decide to use your motorola inter-dimensional mobile fone and give your 2D friend a call.

you NOW want to try tell him, HOW 4 different objects were actualy ONE and HOW they could all be in different places at the same time, and to top it all off they Appeared out of nowhere!

 

maybe that may help someone try picture dimensions that are above us and our current understanding

 

if nothing else it`s food for thought

[Clown]

The analogy of stickmen living on 2D paper universes is also useful with the concept of curved spaces.

[JaKiri]

Einstein used much the same comparison, it's from a book called Flat World, if memory serves, from the nineteenth century.

[YT2095]

damn! trust me to reinvent the wheel yet again

[Dave]

Just look at your average xy-plane and imagine what it would be like to live on it

[YT2095]

I don`t think I can imagine it properly, my mind seems to want to envisage an UP and DOWN.

It took me ages to try and imagine nothingness as in the before the universe existed, I found that saying NO to everything I found myself thinking off got me pretty close to some truth and it gets a little easier with practice, it`s a method that worked for me, probably sounds crazy to anyone else though