A Tripolation Posted July 13, 2009 Posted July 13, 2009 Ok, as I was advised to tell you all so as to avoid undesirable responses, I have looked around on wikipedia and google for an answer, but I can't understand any of it. I'm an english major that likes science, and as such I cannot comprehend anything about the M-Theory or String theory or the other stuff that pops up in searches. Is there definitley more dimensions than the three that we know of? Is time considered the fourth dimension? And if so, does that mean that entities that reside in this dimension could manipulate time as we manipulate the spatial dimensions (hypothetically speaking)? Could we live or even travel to higher dimensions? Or could higher-dimension beings travel hereto our world? Any information or links to explanatory sites would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Tolmosoff Posted July 13, 2009 Posted July 13, 2009 I think to travel into other dimentions mite destroy our body into vapor will be a trama. If other dimentions exist then ghosts exist also afterlife ?. Dimentions like saying that on the other side there are duplicate copies of ourselves which is bunk imagination.
insane_alien Posted July 13, 2009 Posted July 13, 2009 Tolmosoff, i thin you're taking the sci-fi definition of dimension a bit too seriously. we haven't reached a conclusion on how many dimensions the universe has because we have as yet been unable to devise an experiment capable of telling us how many dimensions there are. It is possible the the LHC will provide some clues however and allow us to construct an experiment explicitly to determine the universes dimensionality. currently it is taken as 4 dimentions. the proposed extra dimensions are a bit wierd as they are supposed to be 'curled up' i myself have no idea how this is supposed to work so i'm going to default to the people who say this is a possibility.
Tolmosoff Posted July 13, 2009 Posted July 13, 2009 I hope we don't find the ( After Life ) dimention. Scientists say that we live in a parallel world where we have duplicates of ourselves. Where do they get this crap from ?. So if then I die one day do they actually believe our duplicate dies on the same day ?. Those guys are jokes that live on our money. So they mite find that monkey that gave birth to us ?. They make a big joke out of Darwins idea.
insane_alien Posted July 13, 2009 Posted July 13, 2009 Tolmosoff, the question is where do you get that crap from. i've never seen a paper talking about this.
Sisyphus Posted July 13, 2009 Posted July 13, 2009 Ok, first off, disregard everything Tolsomoff is saying. If the universe has more than 4 dimensions, than we do "reside in" them. We certainly reside in 4. (I assume it took you some finite amount of time to compose your question?) Dimension does not equal some "other place." It's an other direction.
Martin Posted July 13, 2009 Posted July 13, 2009 ...Is there definitley more dimensions than the three that we know of? Is time considered the fourth dimension?... We don't know that there are more than three spatial dimensions. Right now the fuzzy consensus pendulum is actually swinging towards there NOT being any extra spatial dimensions. The biggest event in that particular controversy was the last 12 minutes of a July 7 talk at CERN (geneva switzerland) by nobel laureate Steven Weinberg. He was working on a nonstring idea that he invented in 1979 and has had a big resurgence of interest and which allows what he called "good old Quantum Field Theory" (just 3 spatial dimensions, no strings) to work, and be fundamental after all. If that works out there is no need to dream up extra spatial dimensions. Heard of Occam's razor? So the pendulum swings, and physics hasn't yet made up her mind. Time is a separate issue. The FQXi institute just had an essay contest on the topic What is Time? and the prize essays all happened to argue that time does not exist as a geometric dimensions but is something that somehow "emerges" at large scale. they were against the "block universe" concept. But the pendulum swings on that one too.
A Tripolation Posted July 13, 2009 Author Posted July 13, 2009 I know. I know enough to know that Tolsomoff is talking about sci-fi stuff. But if we live in four dimensions, how come Time cannot be manipulated by us in any way shape or form? Isnt it totally abstract and intangible?
Severian Posted July 13, 2009 Posted July 13, 2009 If the universe has more than 4 dimensions, than we do "reside in" them. Not necessarily. There are quite plausible extra dimension theories where Standard Model fields are constrained to a 4-dimensional surface (the "brane") while gravity (and possibly other exotic stuff) is free to explore the whole space (the "bulk").
Sisyphus Posted July 13, 2009 Posted July 13, 2009 Not necessarily. There are quite plausible extra dimension theories where Standard Model fields are constrained to a 4-dimensional surface (the "brane") while gravity (and possibly other exotic stuff) is free to explore the whole space (the "bulk"). Fair enough - I don't pretend to understand string theory. But still, the dimensions wouldn't be some "other place," right? It would just be directions in which most aspects of us (except for gravity, etc.) have zero extension, just as if we encountered a 2D flatlander drifting around our 3D space. Or am I way off?
J.C.MacSwell Posted July 13, 2009 Posted July 13, 2009 Fair enough - I don't pretend to understand string theory. But still, the dimensions wouldn't be some "other place," right? It would just be directions in which most aspects of us (except for gravity, etc.) have zero extension, just as if we encountered a 2D flatlander drifting around our 3D space. Or am I way off? Not on the same (gravity) point, but another way for us to be unaware of a dimension would be if we were fully extended or immersed in it. We couldn't move in that direction, because we are already there.
magpies Posted July 14, 2009 Posted July 14, 2009 Well seeing as how a dimension can be almost anything a scientist wants it to be... It really depends on what type of dimension your talking about I guess then...
Sisyphus Posted July 14, 2009 Posted July 14, 2009 But if we live in four dimensions, how come Time cannot be manipulated by us in any way shape or form? Isnt it totally abstract and intangible? What do you mean by manipulate?
J.C.MacSwell Posted July 14, 2009 Posted July 14, 2009 I don't think we can manipulate any dimension can we? Thinking in SR terms we can manipulate time and one direction we choose to move in.
A Tripolation Posted July 15, 2009 Author Posted July 15, 2009 By manipulate I mean that we can control something to an extent. Im sorry, I dont really know enough science to convey my thoughts well. Like Im thinking, time only flows in one direction, but if we were able to manipulate it as we do spatial things, we could stop it or reverse it or do whatever we wish with it, right?
Sisyphus Posted July 15, 2009 Posted July 15, 2009 By manipulate I mean that we can control something to an extent. Im sorry, I dont really know enough science to convey my thoughts well. Like Im thinking, time only flows in one direction, but if we were able to manipulate it as we do spatial things, we could stop it or reverse it or do whatever we wish with it, right? Well, can you "manipulate" a spatial dimension? No. You can move an object through one, but what does that actually mean? It means the object's position in a spatial dimension changes with respect to its position in the time dimension. Any motion, i.e. "manipulation," involves both space and time already. So how can time "stop" or "reverse?" Both of those verbs take place within time. To "stop" just means a border between the time when something is happening and a time when it isn't.
Severian Posted July 17, 2009 Posted July 17, 2009 But still, the dimensions wouldn't be some "other place," right? It would just be directions in which most aspects of us (except for gravity, etc.) have zero extension, just as if we encountered a 2D flatlander drifting around our 3D space. Yes. Though you could imagine that maybe there is another brane out there which also has the Standard Model on it. If it were parallel to our own, its 4 dimensions would be the same dimensions as our own, but it would appear to be an "other place" - somewhere that you can't get to from our own space, but need to make an interdimensional jump to get to. (It would have to be a fairly long jump otherwise we would feel its gravity.)
emcelhannon Posted August 17, 2009 Posted August 17, 2009 Do we feel it's gravity? Is it what dark matter theories are made to explain?
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