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About LinkBacksWhy can't we just walk through time? Why are we constantly pushed through time? Why is the 5th dimension a fractal? Could 2-d people exist in our universe, in the same way we 3-d people exist in a 10(?)-d universe?
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June 26th, 2013, 02:49 AM
Why can't we just walk through time? Why are we constantly pushed through time? Why is the 5th dimension a fractal? Could 2-d people exist in our universe, in the same way we 3-d people exist in a 10(?)-d universe?
Is the fifth dimension a fractal?
We can't "walk through time" because it's not a spatial dimension.
What am I about to say is pure speculative:
Originally Posted by NNet
We cannot walk through to time because 'time' is not a spatial dimension, neither are we pushed through time
(if we were, what pushes us? And what the determines the direction?).
I am not sure about the 5th dimension being a fractal. I am more inclined to follow Rob Bryanton's idea that the 5th dimension is a probability space.
Here is a link to a video where Mr. Bryanton explains it: Imagining the Fifth Dimension - YouTube
The existence of two-dimensional creatures in our world seems bizarre and it is difficult to imagine.
For example, they cannot eat because their gastro-intestinal tract would divide them into two pieces and they would not be composed of atoms and molecules (because those things are three-dimensional).
If there are other dimensions that we do not perceive, maybe they apply to objects that are far different from what we observe on a human scale, maybe affecting the super small or the super large/massive. It's possible to imagine that another dimension could be inaccessible to molecules but accessible to sub atomic particles, like water passing back and forth through a strainer while objects on either side are unable to cross, or that a supermassive object might 'move' through a dimension that cannot be perceived by normal mass objects. Its also possible that objects that move in tree dimension also move in another dimension out of our frame of reference, like a dot moving on a balloon might perceive its moving in 2 dimensions without perceiving that it is also moving in 3rd dimension from an external frame of reference. I am puzzled by the idea that mass increases as a particle goes faster and closer to the speed of light, or something like that (not a physicist), is mass an other dimension or something?
"Time flies, you say
but alas, it is we who fly
and, time that stays"
(from a Loredo Taft sculpture's entablature)
u can actually... u can walk through other dimensions, but u just cant see of feel it
Then how do you know it happens?
Yes.
A dimension isn't a place, it's a direction of movement. We have three familiar spatial dimensions, up-down, left-right, forward-back (the x, y, and z axis), and the one temporal dimension (through which we move in only one direction). If string theory is correct, we also have 6 (or maybe 7) other spatial dimensions which we do not perceive because they are 'rolled' up tight and are too small. But we move through them constantly, just as we move through the three large spatial dimensions.
we're multidimensional / transdimensional neutrinos?Yes.
... . But we move through them constantly, just as we move through the three large spatial dimensions.
Here is a two part Carl Sagan video that helps to give a greater understanding of possible other dimensions and what it would be like to interact with them, well worth watching several times over.
Cosmos - Carl Sagan - 4th Dimension - YouTube
4th Dimension pt.2 - YouTube
2-d people in a 3-d universe wouldnt be built to move in 3 dimensions. Instead, they would be moved through the 3rd dimension by other forces.
2-d people could be turned to move in the 3rd dimension. Maybe thats how the 5th dimension works. We could turn to face a different possibility, while travelling through the 4th dimension.
What Im curious about is why some dimensions seem different.
Why do we constantly move through time? Or why do we only perceive a single section of time at a time?
How do we branch off the 5th dimension? I wonder if there are various 5th dimension forces which push you around, based on their own state or something? Maybe things seem random because we dont know whats happening in higher dimensions.
The concept of time is also sometimes called linear because it moves in a straight line only in one direction.2-d people in a 3-d universe wouldn’t be built to move in 3 dimensions. Instead, they would be moved through the 3rd dimension by other forces.
2-d people could be turned to move in the 3rd dimension. Maybe that’s how the 5th dimension works. We could turn to face a different possibility, while travelling through the 4th dimension.
What I’m curious about is why some dimensions seem different.
Why do we constantly move through time? Or why do we only perceive a single section of time at a time?
How do we branch off the 5th dimension? I wonder if there are various 5th dimension forces which push you around, based on their own state or something? Maybe things seem random because we don’t know what’s happening in higher dimensions.
Ok, so what we think of as time is actually a measurement of 'cause & effect'. For example: when you fill up a tray with water and put it in the freezer, this is the cause the effect is, getting the tray out of the freezer and seeing it is full of ice cubes. The water could never have changed into ice without first being frozen.
It's this same process of cause & effect that underpins our whole way of living, and we have refined our understanding of it to become the concept of time. We measure our time against the effects of previous causations. Another example is, you are waiting to the end of the month for your salary. The time element here being the end of the month measured here against a specific event in this case getting your salary, this is another effect, the cause being the work you have done to earn it during the previous month.
Our lives are dictated in this same manner. We can plan things out and learn because we understand the effects from specific causes, this is also the whole foundation for all of science, it's being able to know an effect from being aware of the cause.
You may find these links interesting reading:
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_paradox
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality
Last edited by Ascended; June 30th, 2013 at 10:30 AM. Reason: added links
As a physicist myself. The reasoning would be rather simple. We live in a 4D world. And nothing we do, know, or can ever observe is working outside this realm. We can model things, and even manipulate it to act as 2D or 3D (bearing in mind we always have a time dimension) But we simply cannot say anything without time.
So walking amongst dimension, why can't we? because, well, there is no 5th dimension. Let alone 11.
It is just a mathematical notion. Why can't I have sqrt(-1) bananas? Is in about the same league.
Because it's not fair to the paraplegics.
To bad bananas don't have a square root :PThat would be an i(banana)
I just registered to the science forum like literally five minutes ago. Not specifically to answer this question, but because it looks interesting and the people are intelligent, and debates are not just people arguing and insulting (unlike on YouTube, which is my native site). I am just starting to learn new things and I shall be patient. This is my first post, and for some reason my enter button isn't working, so you'll have to forgive this chunk. To answer your question about dimensions, I assume that spacetime itself only exists in four dimensions. Imagine space only had two dimensions. Imagine it as a piece of paper. The piece of paper is not only what you walk on and do business on, it is actually "space" and what you call space. Anything off that piece of paper is not considered space, and you can't travel outside it. The "space" off our piece of paper is only mathematically useful, but does not exist. And I have no idea why time feels so much different from the other dimensions.
Careful!
Apple have probably copyrighted that.
Since you're a physicist, I agree with everything you said. These are just questions.
Why aren't our dimensions just mathematical notions?, and why don't we percieve all of time at once? Why we walk through the 4th dimension?
I'm going to make a point in a round-about way. Point: our 3 dimensions can cause things to happen instantly (intertwinement), so time could be a dimension.
With time, everything interacts. Without time, supposedly nothing should interact. To interact, supposedly two things would have to move at infinite speed, in 0 seconds. What about intertwinement? From what I remember from a NOVA episode, when you affect a particle in some specific way, another particle is instantly affected. Regardless of location.
Assuming intertwinement is real, time isn't the only cause of processes. So, why not treat time as a dimension?
By "intertwinement" I assume you mean entanglement? But I'm not really sure that that tells us anyhting about time (as a dimension or otherwise). But it does tell us that quantum effects are non-local (in both time and space).
However, in relativity, time is a dimension. But why the time dimension is different from spatial dimensions (or why there is 1 temporal, and 3 spatial) is not clear. It just seems to be the way it is. (I have seen it argued that it is the only combination that allows for a stable universe to exist.)
What?
Time is a dimension.so time could be a dimension.
What?To interact, supposedly two things would have to move at infinite speed, in 0 seconds.
Last edited by Dywyddyr; July 10th, 2013 at 08:08 AM. Reason: Damn typos!
July 10th, 2013, 07:48 AM
Hey genius, it's dimension by the way. What about this though? :
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana....
OB
Yeah, but it's also a dimesion.
Trite. Old.Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana....
But it still makes me smile.
Quite frankly sir u have touched other dimensions by posting this thread
Is your speciality posting nonsense?
Maybe because those locations are already occupied. For example, the location that is here but 1 second in the future is occupied by the future me.
I don't know if that makes any sense, but I like it!
I understand what this is trying to express but, interestingly, statements of this sort inevitably run up against a linguistic problem.Maybe because those locations are already occupied. For example, the location that is here but 1 second in the future is occupied by the future me.
"The location that is here but 1 second in the future is occupied by the future me".
The use of "is" implies that it is occupied now by the future me, and that is obviously wrong. But how can one write what is intended in a way which makes grammatical sense? One could try; "The location that is here but 1 second in the future will be occupied by the future me". However, that doesn't seem to be quite what the statement is meant to be expressing.
The "linguistic problem" is a red herring: if you consider the future as a location ( a position on the world line), then "is" is semantically and grammatically correct.
[QUOTE=Dywyddyr;439333]I accept that events in the future are positions on the world line of whoever is experiencing those events. However, is relates to the present tense and cannot reasonably be applied to events which are not in the present. A similar anomaly arises in trying to describe past events. One could say that the sinking of the Titanic is a point on the world line of the Titanic. But this again is a using the verb is in a contradictory manner. It is applying a present tense to something which happened in the past.
This is not a criticism of the notion of space time, but rather a suggestion that ordinary language can't adequately describe a situation in which events in the past or future are thought to be existant, but not now.
I disagree: despite it being what we call the "past" or "future" it IS present at that point (location) on the world line.
Its position IS exactly there on that line - the location of, say, the Titanic/ iceberg collision is specifically defined.
We simply can't view the entirety of the line itself, that's what causes the "problem".
Last edited by Dywyddyr; July 12th, 2013 at 09:31 AM.
Strictly speaking, non-past as we don't have a future tense in English. (And even that is not completely accurate because of the historic present.)
[QUOTE=Dywyddyr;439337]Let's take an example. We are looking at the usual textbook diagram of space time with the time axis vertical and two spatial axes perpendicular to it. Merely looking at such a diagram abounds with contradictions - it implies that we can do things which we obviously can't do. There might be one point on the diagram representing the first lunar landing and we might say that the point is there on the diagram. Another point might represent the return to earth and, again, we might say that the point is up there. ahead of the previous point in the time direction. But these two points relate to different times and they can't both be described in the present tense. To imagine that they can is simply an illusion which arises from thinking that by looking at a diagram, one can "see" what space time is like.
Last edited by JonG; July 12th, 2013 at 09:33 AM. Reason: typographical error
In other words ignoring what I specifically referred to in my post.
Look at the world line itself.
(Diagram taken from Wiki).
At the blue dot the particle IS brought into being.
Mid way along that line the particle IS at location XYZ in space and [whenever] in time.
What I'm saying is neither new nor particularly controversial...
He stepped up to one of the reporters. "Suppose we take you as an example. Your name is Rogers, is it not? Very well, Rogers, you are a space-time event having duration four ways. You are not quite six feet tall, you are about twenty inches wide and perhaps ten inches thick. In time, there stretches behind you more of this space-time event, reaching to perhaps nineteen-sixteen, of which we see a cross-section here at right angles to the time axis, and as thick as the present. At the far end is a baby, smelling of sour milk and drooling its breakfast on its bib. At the other end lies, perhaps, an old man someplace in the nineteen-eighties. "Imagine this space-time event that we call Rogers as a long pink worm, continuous through the years, one end in his mother's womb, and the other at the grave..."
(Heinlein, same source).
Note the consistent use of the present tense all the way through.
Not that I can see (apart from viewing a world line without a diagram...)it implies that we can do things which we obviously can't do
Of course we can: you did it yourself - the point is there on the diagram. Another point might represent the return to earth and, again, we might say that the point is up there.But these two points relate to different times and they can't both be described in the present tense.
Similarly with KJW's point - on the world line that point IS occupied by the future him.
Interesting. If I say that I will go to bed tonight, my guess is that most people would understand that to mean that I intend to go to bed at some point in the future. So why is that not seen as a future tense?
However, to get back to the space time question. What underlies the problem here is the notion that when events cease to be present and become past, they don't also cease to exist. As Albert Einstein mentioned to the wife of his friend Besso after Besso had died; "there is a sense, understood by physicists, in which people never die" (or words to that effect). He was undoubtedly referring to this feature of space time - past events haven't ceased to exist. But it is very hard to express that idea consistently with our language - I haven't managed to do it above. In particular; "past events haven't ceased to exist". They have ceased to exist now. But there is a sense in which their permanence is preserved.
"Will", in that context is an auxiliary which can express several things such as intent or "epistemic modality". The verb (go) is in the present perfect. You can also use the present imperfect to express the future: I am going to bed later.
And now back to your regularly scheduled discussion...
A similar problem occurs with counterfactual indefiniteness: If in the future one measures one of a pair of quantum entangled particles to be in state X, then that particle is now in state X, but if neither particle is ever measured, then the particle is now in a superposition of states. The experiment might not have been performed yet and the particle state might not presently exist, but the words "is now" is being used retrospectively to describe the state of the particle before it is measured but on the basis of that measurement or if there is never any measurement.
I would answer that the reason we can't walk through time is that we lack organs of locamotion in that dimension.
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