Theory for the 4th dimension.?

Question

I didn't get enough repsonses for my last post so I'll repost it.

Well i got bored today and started reading articles about the 4th dimension.

Well we know that the first dimension is simply a dot and the second dimension is a flat world. If a 3 dimensional object enters the flat world that 3d object will only be seen as a slice of whatever is touching the flat world.

For example if a cylinder enters the flat world (2d World) the objects in the flat world can only see a circle of what slice of what the cylinder is touching onto the world.

In the fourth dimension we have leg nth width height and time. What i've read it means that everything from your birth to death happens all at ounce. It's like a line from your birth time to your death. So it's kinda like the string theory. So people can see everything of what is going to happen all at ounce. Everything that will happen in the third dimension has already happened in the 4th and I think it repeats itself without every knowing.

Well i thought wouldn't that be kinda the same with the 3rd dimension and the 4th dimension. Some people say they see weird objects and stuff like unidentified objects that seem to be unknown in our world.

Could it be those objects are from the 4th dimension. Like when a 3d object enters the 2d world only a slice of what the 3d object is touching onto the world can be seen. Well the 4th dimension is

Length x Width x Height with that we also add time and like I said before it shows everything that happens from beginning to end. Well what those strange things we see could be a part of the objects in the fourth dimension.

Lets say it like this for a more clear example. We will use cubes for the parts of the time in your lives. Cube 1 shows you eating lunch, cube 2 shows you going to bed, cube 3 shows you taking a shower the next day. Well what if the set of cubes come to our dimension. Since they are too complex to see the whole object from the 4th we can only see a single cube of the object and maybe even in a form we can't tell what it is. Sorry if this is confusing i did my best explaining T.T

Gimmie comments of what you think ^^

Answer 1

Isn't time the fourth dimension?

Answer 2

-    I think your on the right track but rememberer that time MAY be considered  a fourth dimension; it is not necessarily the fourth dimension.

-    According to string or specifically 'M' theory there are actually 11 dimensions, if you include time. 7 dimensions wrap around or curve into themselves at the Planck level (much smaller then an atom).  Some believe the three we live in wrap around into themselves at the cosmic level (The Universe).  Time is treated as a fourth dimension, but that is, I believe, just the way we treat it.  There is nothing that really says it IS a fourth dimension.

Here's how I look at it:

-    You can imagine a ball that starts out 2" in diameter and changes to 4" in diameter and you can see it happening all in an instant. Or -  you can see 'through' a 4" diameter ball into a 2" diameter ball, and all the 'steps' between.  

-    This would be a 'view point' of a four dimensional object, but not necessarily an object going through change.

-    Now imagine that the center of the 2" ball is not necessarily the center of the 4" ball.  Think of two different locations that center could be.

-    Now think of the two locations that the center of the 2" ball could be all at the same time and all the steps in between THERE, while still imagining they are converging onto the 4" ball.

-    That would be a mental 'picture' of a FIFTH dimensional object.

-    That mental picture can get pretty complicated when you have 10 dimensions, discounting time.  My head hurts at five! According to 'M' theory nothing exists 'inside' the 7 other dimensions with the exception of a single string.  The string being only a 1 dimensional object, it doesn't get too complicated to view, but it's potential for movement, gives it 7 more choices other than 3.  It may even move back and fourth in the 11th dimension of time.

-   Now this is just pure speculation:

-   My take, and I am no Physicist or Mathametician, is that we really don't see the subatomic particles aka strings move through time.  We either see the strings move through banes / universes,  and it appears they move through time. Or we see ALL space, and maybe time, converge though still another dimension to the SAME 7 dimensional Planck level object. This means that ALL strings are just different aspects of the SAME SINGLE STRING.  This concept seems more plausible for me, otherwise why do we have (1) 3 dimensional space frames in our universe and (almost?!) infinite 7 dimensional space frames in our universe?

Answer 3

you talked about a cylinder being pushed through a 2D world and than they would see a circle. They would see a line. Actually the intersection could be a circle an ellipse or a box depending on the orientation of the cylinder.

The fourth dimension could just be another spatial dimension. Think of the surface of a sphere being a 2D world but it is really a 2D surface in a 3D space. In the same way we could be a 3D "surface" in a 4D space. Surfaces are always one dimension less than the space so in 3D a surface is 2D (the sides of a cube for example). In a 4D cube the surfaces would be cubes and there are 8 of them (a square has 4 sides, a cube has 6 so a 4D cube has 8 sides).

Back to what you are saying. I think you are saying that everything exists as a big 4D thing and that a slice of that 4D thing represents some arbitrary time. I don't think time is actually the equivalent of a spatial dimension. If you remember the definition of the interval between two events then you will know that the signs of the spatial component is opposite that of the time. You can append "i" (square root of -1) to the time component so that when squared you get a -1 that then gives you a positive time term. But what does that mean? You have regular x, y and z in meters but then time is measured in imaginary meters. Anyway, I think a 4th spatial dimension is much more probable.