• TiredThinker
    819
    What can we conclude from topics of dimensions greater than 4? I think physicists have shown with experimentation strong evidence that a 4th spacial dimension may exist. But do dimensions greater than 4 have any logical purpose outside of pure math? Below is a video of a guy who has been criticized by some scientific people based on his views of dimensions. He goes step by step assigning qualities of reality and imagined possible realities to each dimension beyond the 4th. Is this magical thinking? I have never heard a person of science plotting anything out quite this far without evidence. I take the following to be the summary of the videos he has published. Any thoughts?

    1 Length
    2 Width
    3 Depth
    4 Time/Duration
    5 Alternate realities from present time (causally connected)
    6 Alternate realities from big bang (parallel worlds not causally connected)
    7 All realities using all possible rules for physics
    8 All impossible rules of physics
    9 ?
    10 ?


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg85IH3vghA&t
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.3k
    Any thoughts?TiredThinker

    More directly…

    There are ten degrees of freedom:
    length, width, and depth, for three,
    through your life and death;

    Then, 4D, where there’s timeless movement
    Back and forth along
    Your world-line from a fetus to a corpse—
    A tube-like smear of your life as a whole.

    5th, all your probable futures;
    6th, jump directly to any of them,
    7th, all possible Big Bang timelines,
    From starts to endings—an infinity;
    8th, all time-lines of other universes,
    9th, jump to a different universe’s timeline,

    10th, the IS of all possible realities without any delineation between those realities.
    It is an infinity of infinities: Everything.

    Is it a coincidence that string theory has 10 dimensions?
  • Benkei
    7.1k


    In string theory, the idea is some dimensions are curled up and therefore "tiny". Meaning that only at very small scales we may hope to find proof of additional dimensions. Whatever they are, it is inconsistent with what we know about existing dimensions to think a dimension could "contain" entire timelines. The ability to construct a timeline is a consequence of spacetime (and not just the 4th dimension, you need all 4) but they are different things.
  • SpaceDweller
    474


    4th spatial dimension to be seen with human eye like other 3 dimensions must be illusion of space, something like this:

  • Verdi
    116


    If you know how it works, you will discover that the 5, 7, or even 26 extra dimensions in string theory are purely mathematical, unlike the 4d spacetime of general relativity. For explaining dark energy an extra dimension is welcome.
  • Hanover
    12k
    The 5th Dimension brought in the Age of Aquarius.

  • Jack Cummins
    5.1k

    I love the song 'Levels' by Avicci, as for me it may involve stepping into further dimensions. Music may be a way of tapping such dimensions and who knows if they are imaginary. Some may have spoken of astral projection, but this is probably not the common language of philosophy. Multiverses and higher dimensions: the question may be to what extent do these exist in the human imagination or as dimensions independently of human consciousness?
  • James Riley
    2.9k
    10th, the IS of all possible realities without any delineation between those realities.
    It is an infinity of infinities: Everything.
    PoeticUniverse

    I like that one, so long as it (they) account(s) for the absence of it (them) sel(ves)f. But it also sounds a little bit like universal panentheism, which pretends to account for all gods, with one being the only true God over all, or where the rest are simply alternative interpretations of the one. That gives no credit to each one being God, when they really are. And not.

    Restated, without all the god crap, it sounds like the infinity is the one true infinity, while the rest of the infinities are simply alternative interpretations of the one, or worse, they are subordinate to the one real infinity when, in reality, they are each one actual infinities. And not.

    And, rather than "Everything", which uses that suffix of "thing", I like All, which accounts for nothing, or the absence of itself. All, simplified as "A."

    To extend my rant, I like to imagine myself telling Young Sheldon and the rest, as they stand perplexed before their black board trying to delineate the grand theory of every*thing*( :roll: ):

    "The answer is "A." Working backwards we find "All". Working backwards from there we find "A = A and A = -A." Now, you people, smarter than me every one, keep going back to wherever you are now in your calculations and you will have closed the loop and found your grand theory. I have given you the answer. Now figure out the question. That is all. Carry on."
  • Verdi
    116
    In string theory, the idea is some dimensions are curled up and therefore "tiny".Benkei

    The only curling up that is done in string theory is mathematical. Like in Kaluza Klein theory a 4th dimension was introduced for the EM interaction.

    A 5d metric (one for time) was introduced of which extra 8 components, 4 independent ones, on top of the 6 in the 4d metric (ignoring diagonal components).
    These are supposed to induce a metric on a small curled up circle, present at every point in spacetime, perpendicular to it as it were. The form is a circle as this corresponds to U(1) symmetry (used in locally gauging the charged field, from which the EM arises when demanding that the Lagrangian of the charged Dirac field is invariant under this locally gauging; which was still unknown when Kaluza and Klein made their contribution, but the U(1), circle group, symmetry was already known in classical theory on EM, so; their whole framework is purely classical, but an analogue of it was used in string theory, the circle replaced by Calabi-Yau manifolds, to account for the symmetries of other interactions, and point particles replaced by strings) from which the field arises.

    It was thought that particles, on top of their motion through large 3d space move on this these small circles too, to account for EM. I can't see though how a motion on these small circles results in a motion in 3d though. The EM force induces motion in 3d, and this isn't what is happening in the theory.

    There is merely an extra dimension introduced to put information of the EM field on, and is not a real tiny spatial dimension. Of course you can say that when a particle moves through the bulk it moves in the small one too, and the 5d metric indeed gave rise to the Maxwell equations, but the motion in the curled up 5th dimension (,4th spatial), but the extra metric, being the components of the metric of the curled up circle stays just a mathematical one, containing the information of the field, by which the particle moves through the 3d bulk.

    Likewise, the curled up dimensions of string theory are mathematical structures, like a Calabi-Yau manifold, which seemed to fit the bill to incorporate the U(1)×SU(2)×U(3) symmetries of the two other forces, of which the weak force (claimed to emerge from the breaking of the SU(1)×SU(2) symmetry by the Higgs field) might not be fundamental though.

    All this extra stuff, together with strings and their vibrations, corresponding to charges, corresponds to a mathematical extension of space. Be it 6 or 26 dimension-like. The string offers a nice way out from that nasty concept of point particles.

    More likely it seems that particles are curled up 3d structures, tiny Planckian spheres, obtained from curling three dimension of a 6d space up in a 7d space, like a circle on a cilinder. The can all be on top of each other without infinities occurring. The concept of a black hole singularity would disappear and only be approximate. An infinite self energy of charged particles would not have to be renirmalized, as it's not infinite.
  • jgill
    3.5k
    I think physicists have shown with experimentation strong evidence that a 4th spacial dimension may existTiredThinker

    No kidding?
  • TiredThinker
    819


    Coincidence that the music guy describing 10 dimensions based on string theory only described 10 dimensions?
  • TiredThinker
    819
    Yeah, not sure when that starts. Lol.
  • jgill
    3.5k
    I think physicists have shown with experimentation strong evidence that a 4th spacial dimension may exist — TiredThinker

    No kidding?
    jgill

    A link would suffice.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Opinions seem divided.

    1. If time travel is possible then, in effect, time and space become indistinguishable with respect to degrees of freedom - any "point" in time is accessible just like for space.

    2. Martin Rees in his book Just Six Numbers claims, in the first few pages, that life would be impossible in higher dimensions. I haven't got to the chapter where he explains why? Note though that Rees isn't talking about the possibility/reality of higher dimensions; all he's saying is life would be impossible.
  • TiredThinker
    819
    Some physicists suggest that time might be 2 dimensional which may allow time travel. And not everyone can agree on 10 dimensions. Some say fewer, some say 11 or 12. Is assigning concepts of reality like versions of how things happened, and places where physics rules are very different. Is it reasonable to connect them to this numbering scheme?
  • jgill
    3.5k
    Thanks. A couple of quotes from the article:

    "Physically, we don’t have a 4D spatial system, but we can access 4D quantum Hall physics using this lower-dimensional system because the higher-dimensional system is coded in the complexity of the structure.”

    “Right now, those experiments are still far from any useful application,” he said. Yet, physics in the 4th dimension could be influencing our 3D world. As for applications Rechtsman said, “Maybe we can come up with new physics in the higher dimension and then design devices that take advantage the higher-dimensional physics in lower dimensions.”

    The second paragraph is intriguing. A couple of weeks ago Gravitty - before he was banned - made another thought-provoking comment when he said that light does not travel in time.
  • SophistiCat
    2.2k
    A couple of weeks ago Gravitty - before he was banned - made another thought-provoking comment when he said that light does not travel in time.jgill

    This is not a novel idea. It goes something like this: From the "point of view" of a photon, no time passes as it travels. I put the scare quotes around "point of view," because relativity allows no such thing - not because photons have no awareness, but because coordinate transformation equations (Lorentz transform equations) are singular for anything traveling at c, and thus light has no proper (rest) reference frame from which to have a "point of view."

    However, not everything becomes singular as the speed approaches c. If you take the relativistic length contraction equation and mindlessly plug in v = c into it:



    the result is that all distances along light's path are flattened to nothing, and therefore in its nonexistent proper reference frame it is everywhere at once along its path.
  • TiredThinker
    819
    I was thinking once. If light speed is the fastest speed we can measure, and everything we measure seems relative to it. What if there was a higher energy matter in a world we can't observe in which light is actually one of the slowest things.
  • jgill
    3.5k
    Lots of extra dimensions in math - one just defines them. So Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis implies all sorts of things.
  • bert1
    1.8k
    Interestingly, there is no 7th dimension. It skips straight from 6 to 8.
  • jgill
    3.5k
    A point in 7-D: (x,y,z,u,v,w,t)
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    There are 10 dimensions, dimensions understood as the minimum information required to pinpoint an event.

    1. What happened?
    2. Where did it happen? (3D space)
    .......(i) Horizontal
    .......(ii) Vertical
    .......(iii) Depth
    3. When did it happen (time)
    4. Who did it happen to?
    5. How did it happen?
    6. Which made it happen?
    7. Why did it happen?
    8. Whose is it?

    3D (3D space, where?) + 1D (time/when?) + 6D (what? who? how? which? why? whose?)

    In the case of string theory, consistency requires spacetime to have 10 dimensions (3D regular space + 1 time + 6D hyperspace) — Wikipedia
  • Pantagruel
    3.2k
    When I was studying artificial neural networks in the 90s it seemed evident to me that the way that the so-called "hidden layers" worked pointed to a correlation of properties between entities or phenomena that, to the human mind, were unavailable. ie. the classic "mine-rock discriminator" detects an otherwise unobservable "dimension" in which mines and rocks are uniquely differentiated.

    Basically, any set of features or characteristics that can be used to identify and discriminate constitutes a dimension.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Contradictions, I was told, were inconceivable. I tried it and, as far as I'm concerned, that statement obtains. Try and imagine a square circle in Euclidean geometry and see for yourself.

    Note: In spherical geometry, square circles are possible (vide Wikipedia).

    Ancient Greek mathematicians were of the view that made sense (geometrically it's the area of a rectangle, 2D) and that too made sense (it's the volume of a rectanglular cuboid, 3D) but that was nonsensical because it made no geometric sense (it's "something" of a 4D geometric object). That is to say, 4D objects are inconceivable. Keep in mind that no mathematician says there's anything wrong with 4D and higher dimensional objects being inconceivable.

    What I'd like to do is draw your attention to the fact that both contradictions and 4D or higher dimensional objects are inconceivable. It's my suspicion that this ability of math to go where no (human) mind has gone before is the reason for what some have termed quantum weirdness.

    Math then is a gateway to higher levels of consciousness, one that isn't limited by the law of noncontradiction...something like that.

    We're like Plato's cave-dwellers, only capable of seeing the 1D, 2D, & 3D shadows of higher dimensional objects.
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