The 4th dimension - General

Discuss the 4th dimension here I'm sick and tired of threads with "4D" in it getting spammed with "4D HUR HURR DURR" I know nothing of the 4th dimension so here's the wiki. In mathematics the fourth dimension, or a four-dimensional space, is an abstract concept, obtained by taking the rules of our three-dimensional space and generalizing them to a space with one more dimension. It has been studied by mathematicians and philosophers for almost two hundred years, both for its own interest and for the insights it offered into mathematics and related fields. Algebraically it is generated by applying the rules of vectors and coordinate geometry to a space with four dimensions. In particular a vector with four elements (a 4-tuple) can be used to represent a position in four-dimensional space. The space is a Euclidean space, so has a metric and norm, and so all directions are treated as the same: the additional dimension is indistinguishable from the other three. The fourth dimension in this space was sometimes interpreted as time, but this is no longer done in modern physics. In the last century spacetime was developed, which unifies space and time but with a different metric so the time dimension is treated differently from Euclidean space. The resulting space is a Minkowski space and is usually studied separately from the space described here. And a lovely picture :3: [media]http://youtube.com/watch?v=8Q_GQqUg6Ts[/media]

I can grasp the 4th dimension theoretically, but what really boggles my mind is how it would look.

Makes no damn sense to me.

I always thought it was time. Guess I was wrong.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc0[/media]

That picture just made it seem even more complicated. EDIT: [QUOTE=Waze;20079697][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc0[/media][/QUOTE] That guy sounds like he's talking out of his nose.

[QUOTE=dookster;20079613]I always thought it was time. Guess I was wrong.[/QUOTE] Depends on who you ask, not everyone believes time physically exists.

[QUOTE=jalit;20079815]Depends on who you ask, not everyone believes time physically exists.[/QUOTE] I don't quite understand what you mean by that. What's the difference between physically existing and simply existing? I don't know anyone who wouldn't agree that time is.

[QUOTE=Epic Sandwich;20079787]That picture just made it seem even more complicated. EDIT: That guy sounds like he's talking out of his nose.[/QUOTE] 'That guy' was one of the greatest minds of the 20th century (one of the greatest ever). 'That guy' was more than you'll ever amount to. So... SHUT UP!

[QUOTE=mynames2long;20079582]I can grasp the 4th dimension theoretically, but what really boggles my mind is how it would look.[/QUOTE] I once heard a fairly good analogy of how a fourth spatial dimension would work. It's like how if someone lived in a 2D plane and a sphere passed through it, he'd see a circle grow and then shrink again. If a 4D sphere thing passed through our 3D plane we'd see a sphere grow and then shrink again.

[QUOTE=ThePuska;20079872]I don't quite understand what you mean by that. What's the difference between physically existing and simply existing? I don't know anyone who wouldn't agree that time is.[/QUOTE] As in what happened in the past does not exist, it only exists as memories in our brains and pictures.

[QUOTE=sltungle;20079884]'That guy' was one of the greatest minds of the 20th century (one of the greatest ever). 'That guy' was more than you'll ever amount to. So... SHUT UP![/QUOTE] Refraining from commenting on someone's appearance based on their social status is extremely superficial in itself. Have you ever read The Emperor's New Clothes?

:iiam:

[QUOTE=sltungle;20079884]'That guy' was one of the greatest minds of the 20th century (one of the greatest ever). 'That guy' was more than you'll ever amount to. So... SHUT UP![/QUOTE] Strangely enough, I do know who "that guy" was, I study a large amount of physics and have a great interest in the subject. I was purely commenting on how he was speaking.

This shit is intriguing, have an informative.

[QUOTE=jalit;20079815]Depends on who you ask, not everyone believes time physically exists.[/QUOTE] Well every scientist believes it. Ever heard of the relativity theory? Space-Time? Anything? It's common knowledge that time isn't made up.

Among prominent philosophers, there are two distinct viewpoints on time. One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence. Time travel, in this view, becomes a possibility as other "times" persist like frames of a film strip, spread out across the time line. Sir Isaac Newton subscribed to this realist view, and hence it is sometimes referred to as Newtonian time. The opposing view is that time does not refer to any kind of "container" that events and objects "move through", nor to any entity that "flows", but that it is instead part of a fundamental intellectual structure (together with space and number) within which humans sequence and compare events. This second view, in the tradition of Gottfried Leibniz and Immanuel Kant, holds that time is neither an event nor a thing, and thus is not itself measurable nor can it be travelled. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time[/url] Not every scientist believes it.

I can't take my eyes off that picture.

[QUOTE=Epic Sandwich;20079787]That picture just made it seem even more complicated. EDIT: That guy sounds like he's talking out of his nose.[/QUOTE] You seriously didn't just make fun of carl sagan did you?

Everybody knows Carl Sagan has a nasally voice.

So we're laughing at how cheap 2D is, while 4D is laughing at our 3D ]:

The picture... I can't look away. I'm confused, is that rotating, and if so, HOW THE FUCK?

[QUOTE=mynames2long;20079582]I can grasp the 4th dimension theoretically, but what really boggles my mind is how it would look.[/QUOTE] You will never know how the 4th dimension looks, because we live in the 3rd dimension, and as such, it's futile to even TRY to imagine hyperspace.

If you don't fully grasp it yet, try this video it may help. [Media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDaKzQNlMFw[/Media]

Someone get johnnymo1 in here so he preach from Michio Kaku

[QUOTE=Hoboharry;20080076]:iiam:[/QUOTE] :iiaca:

@Op: I have to disagree that a 4-dimensional space has to be Euclidean. If your metric is not orthogonal and isometric, you don't get an Euclidean space. General Relativity for example works on non-Euclidean spaces.

[QUOTE=blackt12;20081178]If you don't fully grasp it yet, try this video it may help. [URL="http://www.facepunch.com/#"]View YouTUBE video[/URL] [URL]http://youtube.com/watch?v=uDaKzQNlMFw[/URL] [/QUOTE] "You are now ready to explore more advanced topics." Are you shitting me?

4th Dimension - Hypercube, also gets mentioned in the movie Hypercube.

But seriously, I can understand it fully... try watching this 4d baby video: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAgfA9MZfVM&feature=related[/media]