The 4th dimension - Scientists bend rules to catch glimpse of unknown

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: SkeptiSchism

So do 4d objects contain 3d aspects? If so we should be able to manipulate them right?

Wrong, we can no more manipulate the 'fourth dimension' than a 2D flatlander can visit "Up".

The next dimensions is all around and thru us and yet we see it not. We are spatially locked, just like 2D flatlanders cannot comprehend 'up'.

And yet our very soul exists there, we are already there, literally, and yet we don't even acknowledge our own soul.

No the 4th dimensions isn't a place at all its simply another degree of movement. In out world we need 3 degrees of movement to point to an object and of course time. Leftand right 1 degree forward backward two up down 3 degrees. A forth would allow for a diagnal movement of points.

Lets try to explain this if I set a wooden frame on a table and place a ring in the middle There is no way the ring can be removed from the frame within the confines of the two dimensional surface of the table. Now we have access to a third dimension. The ring is easily removed merely by lifting it into the third dimension, the height above the table We are then free to move the coin as we please in the higher layer and then lower back to the tabletop outside the frame.
The thing to notice about the lifting is that the motion does not move the coin at all in the two horizontal directions of the two dimensional space. So the motion never brings it near the frame and there is no danger of collision with the frame.

Now let's do the same thing with a cube a 3d object and we have a marble at its center. In 3d space are marble is completely enclosed can't go up down left right or back and forwards without contacting the frame of the cube.

But just like before there is another option.The marble can be removed in exactly the same way by "lifting" it, this time into the fourth dimension. As with the ring in the frame, the key thing to note is that in this lifting motion, the marble's position in the three spatial directions of the box are unchanged. The marble never comes near the walls and there is no danger of colliding with them.

What we have done is moved are marble to another layer of 3d space where the cube isn't there. The moved marble can then be freely relocated in that new layer and, if we pleased lowered back into the original three dimensional space in quite a different location.

Accessing a 4th dimensionin 3d space means nothing would be secure even a bank vault you could empty the contents without even unlocking it.

a reply to: dragonridr

No the 4th dimensions isn't a place at all its simply another degree of movement.

Dd you just say that everywhere isn't a place?

K

(sorry couldn't read any further than that, I fell off my nowhere.)

Carl Sagan beat you to flat land analogy decades ago...

Accessing a 4th dimensionin 3d space means nothing would be secure even a bank vault you could empty the contents without even unlocking it.

I didn't know money had a soul... lulz

a reply to: Scrubdog

I am not a physicist, just a lawyer who enjoys quantum mechanics and writing fiction on UFOs and the crossover into politics. I get to be an amateur.

Hi Scrubdog, you might enjoy this.

Seems like a 3-d object can only exist in space if it also has a duration in time. If time exists outside of our space, then when a 3-d object no longer exists in our space-time, perhaps it exists in another space-time. That would be more like traveling into another reality, not like it can exist in only a single dimension like time, then convert back into space plus time. Time and motion are related, so when something moves on a 2-d plane, it also must have time to move.

Personally I believe that nothing can exist without having all the dimensions, so there are no extra-dimensional objects that can stand alone without the other dimensions. If there are strictly 4th dimensional objects, they cannot exist in our space-time and so cannot exist here and now.

a reply to: PublicOpinion

Sounds like the device at the start of Guardians of the Galaxy that allows Quill to see people/events in the past.

Cool however that all through they cannot actually perceive 4th-dimensional objects they may be able to surmise their 3-dimensional shadows.

And if it does indeed produce or lead to the discovery of a new form of higher-dimensional physics that allows us to apply such to physical devices or machines in our own dimension that operates via such principles, who knows what on the horizon.

And now we have a fascinating read, folks! I have some things on my plate and can't go back to every single reply right now. Maybe later, thanks for your contributions!

originally posted by: Scrubdog
Just a question here.

Is it just me, or do paintings or representations of the fourth dimension sit very heavily in your mind, like they open up more than the "physical universe" into something much much more profound? I don't want to say it is "dark" in my mind, but very definitely deep, unsettling.

Am I alone in that?

The spooky shroom-like feeling of falling into eternity for just staring at a painting? Definitely. There's another pole of this experience for me while painting. The positive delight of playful senselessness resulting in a coherent composition, that came seemingly out of nowhere. It may sound weird but I take quite the energy out of that for my darker days.

a reply to: Zelun

Now I can see where you are coming from. I had some problems with unpacking your "slightly" compact first reply, that's all.
Don't mind the lightshow and thanks for picking up on my questions! The linked study helped a lot.

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter

Thanks again!

originally posted by: dragonridr

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: SkeptiSchism

So do 4d objects contain 3d aspects? If so we should be able to manipulate them right?

Wrong, we can no more manipulate the 'fourth dimension' than a 2D flatlander can visit "Up".

The next dimensions is all around and thru us and yet we see it not. We are spatially locked, just like 2D flatlanders cannot comprehend 'up'.

And yet our very soul exists there, we are already there, literally, and yet we don't even acknowledge our own soul.

No the 4th dimensions isn't a place at all its simply another degree of movement. In out world we need 3 degrees of movement to point to an object and of course time. Leftand right 1 degree forward backward two up down 3 degrees. A forth would allow for a diagnal movement of points.

Lets try to explain this if I set a wooden frame on a table and place a ring in the middle There is no way the ring can be removed from the frame within the confines of the two dimensional surface of the table. Now we have access to a third dimension. The ring is easily removed merely by lifting it into the third dimension, the height above the table We are then free to move the coin as we please in the higher layer and then lower back to the tabletop outside the frame.
The thing to notice about the lifting is that the motion does not move the coin at all in the two horizontal directions of the two dimensional space. So the motion never brings it near the frame and there is no danger of collision with the frame.

Now let's do the same thing with a cube a 3d object and we have a marble at its center. In 3d space are marble is completely enclosed can't go up down left right or back and forwards without contacting the frame of the cube.

But just like before there is another option.The marble can be removed in exactly the same way by "lifting" it, this time into the fourth dimension. As with the ring in the frame, the key thing to note is that in this lifting motion, the marble's position in the three spatial directions of the box are unchanged. The marble never comes near the walls and there is no danger of colliding with them.

What we have done is moved are marble to another layer of 3d space where the cube isn't there. The moved marble can then be freely relocated in that new layer and, if we pleased lowered back into the original three dimensional space in quite a different location.

Accessing a 4th dimensionin 3d space means nothing would be secure even a bank vault you could empty the contents without even unlocking it.

The idea of this 2D to 3D projection and 3D to 4D projection comes from the idea of crystallography. Very often they can figure out the structure of a molecule by putting it into a water solution, then letting that dry out and form solid crystals (regular lattice like cubes or tetrahedrons). They they use X-ray crystallography to get a 2D image. This can be analyzed to provide the 3D structure.

They get a similar effect when they constrain electrons to a 2D plane then apply the magnetic field. They get all these little vortices formed from electrons on the surface of the metal. These can form structured arrangements like Penrose tiles (formed from triangles and quadrilaterals made from shapes with two different edge lengths), but called quasicrystals. These patterns are like a 3D lattice projected onto 2D.

www.wired.com...

It's thought that whatever generates irregular patterns in 2D/3D dimension must be a regular patten in 3D/4D.

originally posted by: Jonjonj
They found the shadow realm!

Nope, Subspace from Star Trek

originally posted by: dragonridr
Accessing a 4th dimensionin 3d space means nothing would be secure even a bank vault you could empty the contents without even unlocking it.

Maybe the scientists should start working on designing a 4 dimensional bank vault then, one that can't be broken into by accessing he 4th dimension?


Seriously though, this 4 spatial dimension research sounds like a neat trick of quantum mechanics, but I think 3 dimensional vaults are fairly secure for now.

a reply to: dragonridr

Love that explanation, for something that is pretty easy to imagine.

Thanks for that!

originally posted by: Zelun
a reply to: Scrubdog

There's a book you should check out, it's called Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. It's a big, fat, non-fiction book all about recursion. It will crawl inside your head and eat its way out!

EDIT: In a good way

Excellent book! Talk about a rabbit hole!

There is a mathematical sculpture called "The Octocube" which is said to be the first rendering of the 4th dimension. I wonder if it lent inspiration. Penn State mathematics professor Adrian Ocneau
Yo Adrian.

a reply to: dragonridr

You mean you would simply take the marble to another TIME, in which the cube was not there? Then move it while in this other TIME? Then replace it back to its time, if you wished, only now it it is outaide the cube?

With the Earth, Solar System, Galaxy, Galaxy Cluster strands etc constantly in motion, you could just grab onto the marble while remaining perfectly still(in relation to...whatever our local galaxy group "orbits") and let go a split second later, and it would be outaide of tge box.

4th spatial dimension? W x y z. This is like saying North Northwest is a new direction!

So like, the difference between a 2 link wishbone and a 4 link panhard? Or like a square instead of a triangle? I don't understand their interpretation.


"That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all Saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height: to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all fullness of God."

originally posted by: AdKiller
4th spatial dimension? W x y z. This is like saying North Northwest is a new direction!

So like, the difference between a 2 link wishbone and a 4 link panhard? Or like a square instead of a triangle? I don't understand their interpretation.

Best represented by a hypercube...



I donna feel like breaking it all down tonight, done so many times before to crickets...

All the dimensions intersect at right angles. So an object in the 4th dimension would look snakelike. Taking duration as the 4th dimension and intersecting the lower dimension at a right angle, an object will appear as a long curling snake with the 3rd dimension being a slice of the 4th dimensional object.

Its my opinion that the tesseract is a vague representation.

Cool thread. I've recently been reading Hyperspace by Michio Kaku, which is mostly about higher dimensional physics. It's 20 years old though, so obviously it doesn't contain all the latest developments, but it has a lot of the background for anyone interested. Higher dimensional physics hold lots of promise if we ever figure it out. Technologies that seem centuries away could come much faster if the right breakthroughs are made. Just think how fast our technology advanced after a complete theory of electromagnetism was discovered.

a reply to: AdKiller

In plastic art, I believe, there is a fourth dimension which may be described as the consciousness of a great and overwhelming sense of a space-magnitude in all directions at one time, and is brought into existence through the three known measurements. It is not a physical entity or a mathematical hypothesis, nor and optical illusion. It is real and can be perceived and felt. It exists outside and in the presence of objects, and is in the space that envelops a tree, a tower, a mountain or any solid; or in the inter- vals between objects or volumes of matter if receptively beheld. It is somewhat simi- lar to color and depth in musical sounds. It arouses imagination and stirs emotion. It is the immensity of all things. It is the ideal measurement, and is therefore as great as the ideal, perceptive or imaginative facul- ties of the creator, architect, sculptor or painter.

(Max Weber) "The Fourth Dimension of Cubism" (direkt PDF link)

a reply to: PublicOpinion

This from the quoted article you have in your OP sparked a long held thought I can say I share with many.

Put simply, as we perceive it, 3D objects cast 2D shadows, so it follows that 4D objects would cast 3D shadows, even if we can't actually see the 4D object itself.

the 2D shadows we see of ourselves comes from light interacting with our 3D bodies.

If put so simply, could one not entertain the idea (spiritually not academic) that our 3D bodies are simply 3D shadows of our 4D selves which could be ........



our 4D selves could be


our awareness/consciousnesses


or


our Soul/spirit.


Then I got to this

However, as such research continues, it could afford us unique perspectives on current fields of study. One such instance would be in materials science. Quasicrystals in metallic alloys have no periodic structure in three dimensions but do in higher, theoretical ones such as the fourth dimension. Such quasicrystals could one day greatly reinforce steel, develop improved heat insulation, and provide new materials which convert heat to electricity. They could also be used as solar absorbers for power conversion in the renewable energy industry as well providing low-friction alternatives to current artificial bone repair and prostheses applications in the medical science field.

That is some mind boggling stuff.

It begs the question of how much improvements can be made to existing materials,

Could this be the key to creating space craft to take us next the sun for a close view to absorb energy and then travel to another star?

Could this end the need for fossil fuel if enough energy can be converted at a fraction of the cost and that leaves no damage to our environment?

a reply to: Wide-Eyes

Beat me to it =]