Which dimension came first if the 4th dimension is time?

The answer is simple-the dimensions are interdependent.
Anyone who thinks dimensionality is linear is living in the 19th century.

It's like the old which came first the chicken or egg question.
Simultaneously interdependent. Once you have chicken DNA you have both.

Is time REALLY a dimension? I mean, it's a man made concept. It has no beginning or end...I equate it to someone asking where the beginning and end of a circle is....there is none.

Just my 2-cents

[edit on 7-10-2009 by Aggie Man]

Originally posted by Aggie Man
Is time REALLY a dimension? I mean, it's a man made concept. It has no beginning or end...I equate it to someone asking where the beginning and end of a circle is....there is none.

I agree entirely, but I'd even venture to push this concept further:

Can 'dimension' REALLY be bound by a number? Just as time flows differently for the individual depending on where he/she is and what he/she is engaged in at the 'moment', I see dimensions as 'liquid' and improvisational.

I believe that we constantly travel inter-dimensionally each night when we sleep. Sometimes we 'fall back' into the patterns and fears of our conditioned awareness, which can give insight into our personal growth.
Sometimes we 'float' up' into the limitless space of unbarred dream-creation, and the only limits we have are those we give ourselves.

My question is:

Where is the line between these dimension/states?

[edit on 21-12-2009 by RiverCrow]

Hi Spy66,

The 4th dimension can't be time for a very specific reason, the 4th dimension is at right angles to the 3rd dimension;

If you can imagine a cube in 3d, this 3d object is a shadow of the 4th dimension
looking at the cube is an act of the 4th dimension,

Easily provable;

Dimension 1 is a point or singularity
Dimension 2 creates a shadow, or point
Dimension 3 creates a 2nd dimensional shadow on a 2 plane surface eg; you stand in the sun (you're the 3d object) and you gaze apon the ground, low and behold there is a 2d shadow on a flat surface.

However just to mix it up a bit, a cube really has 13 dimensions, 2 for each side (6x2) and the originating 1d point.

To see all 13 dimensions you have to imagine being inside the cube looking outwards whilst simulataneously being on the outside of the ube looking inwards

You have now become a 14th dimensional being.

Sorry for the headaches, but humans need to "think outside the box", pun intended.


HADES

I suggest you look at the book "Wrinkles in Time" by George Smoot. It describes many issues that have to do with the creation of "time" as it is understood by us.

Great questions, though I don't think any dimension was created first.

Space is definitely the first requirement....not only do you need a place to work in, you need a place to put what is created.

No dimension "came before another" as you put it. All (11, according to M theory, but I would posit that there are far more depending on how you categorize them) came into existence simultaneously.

reply to post by spy66


According to modern cosmology all four dimensions came into existence together in the event known as the Big Bang. Not only this, but according to general relativity since time is a dimension all moments in time exist together all at once. For example, yesterday and tomorrow are just as real as today. They are in a sense happening right now. Every second composes 186,000 miles in the fourth dimension.

Originally posted by die_another_day
Time and space are inseparably related.

As space expands, time expands proportionally.

No they dont. Theres no connection. Time runs at the rate of one second per second in a flat homogeneous euclidean space.

I hate it when people post pseudoscientific bollox. There is no evidence whatsoever that this statement is true, and in fact the expansion of the universe and 'time' cannot 'expand' , its not a gauge field.

The theories about what happens to the fabric of spacetime below the Plank length are many and varied, but my choice of the truth is Roger Penroses Twistor Theory, particularly the way single dimensional spinor networks generate 3 dimensional space on a large scale. Is also pretty convincing in argument regarding the collapse of 11 dimensional metaspace into 3 spatial dimensions and one time dimension.

One interesting consequence is that it appears due to the interchangeability of twistors that spatial and time dimensions are interchangealble. There may be universes with 2 time dimensions and two spatial dimensions, for example, and even worse, over a long period of time, spatial and time dimensions can interchange.

The evidence that this could be happening is an observation that one effect of a dimension changing type is that speed of light would get slower. There is much current hand wrangling about the age of the universe, being far to short (13 Billion years). However, as someone pointed out, if the speed of light were faster in the past, then the universe would be much older than it appears.

[edit on 16-2-2010 by SensiblePersonUK]

[edit on 16-2-2010 by SensiblePersonUK]

Originally posted by Aggie Man
Is time REALLY a dimension? I mean, it's a man made concept. It has no beginning or end...I equate it to someone asking where the beginning and end of a circle is....there is none.

Just my 2-cents

[edit on 7-10-2009 by Aggie Man]

Time is a crap name for it. A better description is the 'Direction of Entropy' There is a beginning an end. It is not a theoretical man made thing. Its a consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Time started when the net entropy of the Universe grew larger than 0, and time will stop when the net entropy of the universe maxes out.

[edit on 16-2-2010 by SensiblePersonUK]

Originally posted by SensiblePersonUK

Originally posted by Aggie Man
Is time REALLY a dimension? I mean, it's a man made concept. It has no beginning or end...I equate it to someone asking where the beginning and end of a circle is....there is none.

Just my 2-cents

[edit on 7-10-2009 by Aggie Man]

Time is a crap name for it. A better description is the 'Direction of Entropy' There is a beginning an end. It is not a theoretical man made thing. Its a consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Time started when the net entropy of the Universe grew larger than 0, and time will stop when the net entropy of the universe maxes out.

[edit on 16-2-2010 by SensiblePersonUK]

I am not 100% sure about what you mean by grew larger then 0.

Did it grow larger by a compression or an expansion?

What do you mean by Zero? Is that a static state of energy where there is no changes taking place?

If so how did it grow? How would you explain the Thermodynamic Law from Zero state energy?

Originally posted by FTL_Navigator
Hi Spy66,

The 4th dimension can't be time for a very specific reason, the 4th dimension is at right angles to the 3rd dimension;

If you can imagine a cube in 3d, this 3d object is a shadow of the 4th dimension
looking at the cube is an act of the 4th dimension,

Easily provable;

Dimension 1 is a point or singularity
Dimension 2 creates a shadow, or point
Dimension 3 creates a 2nd dimensional shadow on a 2 plane surface eg; you stand in the sun (you're the 3d object) and you gaze apon the ground, low and behold there is a 2d shadow on a flat surface.

However just to mix it up a bit, a cube really has 13 dimensions, 2 for each side (6x2) and the originating 1d point.

To see all 13 dimensions you have to imagine being inside the cube looking outwards whilst simulataneously being on the outside of the ube looking inwards

You have now become a 14th dimensional being.

Sorry for the headaches, but humans need to "think outside the box", pun intended.


HADES

I am not sure if i understand this correct. The 4th dimension can only be to the right of the 3d if you create the 3Ds pointing to the right.

If you erase the 3Ds. You will still have every dimension accountable surrounding the 4th. So then the 4th dimension wont have a location except to be in the middle.

Originally posted by spy66

Originally posted by SensiblePersonUK

Originally posted by Aggie Man
Is time REALLY a dimension? I mean, it's a man made concept. It has no beginning or end...I equate it to someone asking where the beginning and end of a circle is....there is none.

Just my 2-cents

[edit on 7-10-2009 by Aggie Man]

Time is a crap name for it. A better description is the 'Direction of Entropy' There is a beginning an end. It is not a theoretical man made thing. Its a consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Time started when the net entropy of the Universe grew larger than 0, and time will stop when the net entropy of the universe maxes out, and the net energy denisity of the universe tends to 0.

[edit on 16-2-2010 by SensiblePersonUK]

I am not 100% sure about what you mean by grew larger then 0.

Did it grow larger by a compression or an expansion?

What do you mean by Zero? Is that a static state of energy where there is no changes taking place?

If so how did it grow? How would you explain the Thermodynamic Law from Zero state energy?

Entropy is the process by which energy is converted to a lower form. EG you pass electromagnetic energy into an electric fire and change it to infra red radiation. You have degraded the energy to a less efficient form, and increased the net entropy of the universe. In the process you have indicated the direction of the arrow of time.

AT the moment the big bang occurred, the net entropy of the universe was zero, because the totality of the energy in the universe was at its higest possible state. From that point, as the universe cooled, and energy was used to drive inflation and then create matter, the net entropy of the universe increased relentlessly, and has done so ever since.

As the universe expands and cools, matter is converted to energy and then to lower forms of energy, eg inside stars to photons of light and X-rays. Eventually, all the stars will die out, the universe will edge closer and closer to absolute zero. The net energy available to power chemical and nuclear interactions gets lower and lower, until all interaction between matter and radiation ceases. By then, all the matter in the universe will have changed to iron 56, being the most stable electron shell state. All the photons in the Universe will have been absorbed, and the universe will be a cold dead place, where nothing interacts and nothing changes, not even one single atom.

There is a possible further stage, depending of protons are stable or not (not yet proven). If not, matter will then degrade further as iron atoms break up in a type of cold fission, and electrons and liberated free protons combine to form neutrons, and all the matter in the universe then turns into free neutrons.

At this point, which will be approximately 10^1200 years in the future, when entropy has reached its maximum possible value, time will effectively stop, because it will no longer be possible to determine the direction of the arrow of time by reference to entropy. Time will become a meaningless concept.

You have to get your head round how big the universe will be at this point. It will be approximately 1000 times the diameter it is now and 100,000 the volume. there will be still possibly the odd single lone photon travelling for billions of years, never ever encountering any matter, or any other subatomic particle. Even the neutrino flux, the flood of neutrinos that currents pervades every atom of your body, will have ceased. The universe will be utterly cold, dead and unchanging, and black. Blacker than you can imagine, totally black in all directions, forever.


Its been argued at this point the spinor networks that create the fabric of dimensional space time may then disassociate - the fabric and structure of space time then breaks down, and the universe will simply melt away to nothing.



[edit on 16-2-2010 by SensiblePersonUK]

Sorry, time does not exist in nature. Time is not the 4th dimension or any dimension. Time is an abstract concept used by the mind. It is not real. Something is this high, or that wide, or that long by conventions of what side each dimension represents for that object. Perhaps a singularity expanded into n dimensions.

Originally posted by ReelView
Sorry, time does not exist in nature. Time is not the 4th dimension or any dimension. Time is an abstract concept used by the mind. It is not real. Something is this high, or that wide, or that long by conventions of what side each dimension represents for that object. Perhaps a singularity expanded into n dimensions.

Time is method by which you determine the direction of change of entropy.

You know which way time runs because you can measure the amount of energy in a candle before and after its been used, and the order of those two the produces a lower second figure is the direction of of the arrow of time.

Time has to be introduced as a dimension because without it entropy cannot change.

Time itself as a dimension is created along with the uncompacted 3 spatial dimensions as a consequence of the aggregation of spinor networks.

It is not possible to go int odetail here, but to understand it you need to track down the papers written by the Cambridge Group lead by Roger Penrose on Spinor Networks and Twistor Theory.

Without time as a dimension, quite simply, we would not exist.

Time and spatiality are indistinguishable mathematically in both Special Relativity, In String Theory, and in Twistor Theory. Even if you rewrite Maxwells equations in 5 dimensions, its not fussy if you add another time or another spatial dimension. There is likely to be other universe that consist, for example of three time dimensions and one spatial dimension, there absolutely nothing in the maths to prevent it. Its just a concept most people cant get there heads round, thats why there not cosmologists or physicists

[edit on 16-2-2010 by SensiblePersonUK]