!!The 4th dimension!!

popinfresh · 05-10-2001 8:43pm #1

Does anybody here, think that there is some sort of 4th dimention? Personally, I'd say that that would slightly explain black-holes, it's not that they cause things tp disapear into oblivion, but when they are created, they pierce a hole in time (which I beleive is a sort of barrier that keeps us in a 3 dimensional state) therefore moving matter to a different place.
Sorry to throw all that at once, but what do yez think?

Supercell · 06-10-2001 12:23am

I always thought the 4th dimension was time?

That said i think of time as being 2 dimensional (seriously)

Dont be at yourself · 06-10-2001 12:35am

yeah, time is the fourth demension.

I suppose we perceive time as being 2d because our brains aren't able to think in 4 dimensions.

popinfresh · 06-10-2001 12:58am

I suppose it is really hard to imagine 4d, but what I did was, look at your advantage over 2d-shapes, then you might be able to respect 4d a little more. My understanding is that there is whole other galaxies right within milimeters of us, but we're incapable of moving in their direction..

Supercell · 06-10-2001 1:19am

What bothers me most about the fourth dimension is that we percieve it as being changable, adaptable etc, the human side of things, it just doesnt sit right.

Nature is simple..it doesnt like complication, human ideas of time just don't fit into the evolution of things.

The only way i can rationalise time is our impression of moving within the fixed object, time is the change of one thing to another, conciousness is putting that change into something that makes sense.

Everything, is a block, we just percieve different parts, then we dont..

Bob the Unlucky Octopus · 06-10-2001 8:44pm

Scientifically, time flows from the beginning of the universe in conjuction with space-time and "c", the velocity of light. This can be represented on a multi-dimensional graph- which effectively proves mathematically for example, that a photon hasn't aged since the beginning of the universe.

Time is regarded as a "dimension" but it is no more or less constant than space- simple relativity demonstrates this. Objects approaching "c" have time pass slower relative to a stationary observer's point of reference. Thus, time cannot be considered independant of the velocity it is measured at- the fact that space is also distorted longtitudinally when c is approached brings us to the concept of space-time. Stephen Hawking's immensely popular "A Brief History of Space and Time" discusses these issues in a very appealing way aimed at the general public. If anyone's interested in pursuing these ideas further from an armchair perspective- that would be the way to do it

Occy

Supercell · 06-10-2001 9:29pm

What if i send 100 people back in time to kill my Grandfather, surly one of them would be successful?

But i still have existed, therefore multiple probabilities must exist, which explains why we never meet a time traveller, he changed history, which means a timeline we dont exist in.

Still fits my understanding of time, we exist everywhere at once, ie past present and future which is why time travellors cannot be seen, they create their own time/universe.

Supercell · 06-10-2001 11:21pm

Flawed, if not a 100 people, what if i send a 1000 or a 100,000, within reason, they cannot all fail.

Therefore paradoxes don't need to exist. Step out of the box BoneCollector, reality is more than one.

Kairo · 06-10-2001 11:40pm

I suppose we perceive time as being 2d because our brains aren't able to think in 4 dimensions.

Maybe so...but get this. What if time is actually 3 dimensional? Hmm. How you say? Well maybe time isn't linear. Maybe the 5th dimesion is Reality. Bear with me

Time can take various turns along the way (eg one reality might be that I succed in life, get married, have kids live happy...another reality might be me as a drug-addled degenerate, living on the streets as a hooker

) ,and maybe there are alternate realitys everywhere...that would make time travel possible somewhat. etc.etc

In summary

4th Dimension = Time
5th Dimension = Alternative Realitys

Too much star trek...

Supercell · 07-10-2001 1:01am

BoneCollector with all due respect..

the past has already created the future (which is now the present) and the past happens before the future.
since 100000000000000,0000 where sent back to kill your grandfather and you now exist then you failed!

is just so far off the normal curve its really really improbabal, think of the monkeys and Shakespeare theory.

That kind of thinking just is too fancyful, nature like a river will take the fastest route.

There is no other explanation for why we have never met a time travellor, and never can..ie they are in a completely different time/universe to us.

Like a vacuum, nature abhors a paradox.

popinfresh · 07-10-2001 12:16pm

Time can take various turns along the way (eg one reality might be that I succed in life, get married, have kids live happy...another reality might be me as a drug-addled degenerate, living on the streets as a hooker )

If alternative existenses were reality, then who's to say you would even exist in them. What if your great-great-great-great grandad hadn't been horny on a particular night, therefore not making your great-great-great grandad. There would be at present time at least 10000 humans inexistant, and then perhaps the next night he was horney, and conceived a child, there would be 10,000 more people today, if not more when you take into account that different friends could lead to you the right place at the right time
As for time travel, mayby if we go back in time, we split reality into 2, creating 2 universes, 1 were you came from, and 1 where you altered time..

Bob the Unlucky Octopus · 08-10-2001 3:18pm

Bonecollector- "time travel" is the stuff of science fiction, not science. Faster than Light (FTL) travel is impossible- everything we know about the universe is based on the premise that nothing exceeds the speed of light. Alternative dimensions, while a palatable literary concept, is a laughable one scientifically. Quantum behavior is the closest thing we have to "parallel dimensions". I don't mind a departure into the "para-science" of physics:rolleyes: , but as long as it is corroborated by appropriate sources. This forum isn't meant for discussing whether aliens landed at roswell, or whether sending 10 ^x clones back in time to kill your antecedents is feasible logistically- it's meant to discuss issues that have scientific bearing. Back on topic pls

Occy

smoke.me.a.kipper · 08-10-2001 3:42pm

as far as i always assumed... we have 3 dimensions.... (as i think it... height, width, depth...) that are needed for any matter to exist. what else is also needed? time. the object has to actually exist for a period of time.

and as for the multiple dimension theory about every decision or action making a seperate dimension / universe. there would be an infinite number of dimensions then. think about everything in the whole universe that could be differant. maybe a blade of grass moved differantly, or maybe and atom at the beginning of the universe was in a differant place.

and as for time travel. it cant happen, ANYTHING someone does will create a paradox with something else, no matter how small. even by occupying space. paradox's cant happen.

these may certainly not be right, but these are just the way i think about these thingds.

azezil · 08-10-2001 4:15pm

Not surprisingly, time travel has always been considered impossible. After all, Newton believed that time was like an arrow; once fired, it soared in a straight, undeviating line. One second on the earth was one second on Mars. Clocks scattered throughout the universe beat at the same rate.

Einstein gave us a much more radical picture. According to Einstein, time was more like a river, which meandered around stars and galaxies, speeding up and slowing down as it passed around massive bodies. One second on the earth was NOT one second on Mars. Clocks scattered throughout the universe beat to their own drummer.

Sourse of info for our two main arguer's! ... in case u were wondering

Supercell · 08-10-2001 7:11pm

Interesting theory Kyro, perhaps time has several facets or dimensions too.

Would fit in with ftl being impossible and why one cannot go back in time, as azezil quoted

According to Einstein, time was more like a river

Perhaps the river analogy could also mean tributaries etc..even pools, as future travel is most definately possible, motion is time travel (the experiment with atomic clocks and airplanes springs to mind) .

Interesting stuff, hmm.

Supercell · 08-10-2001 9:44pm

I think its more than observation BoneCollector, Schroedinger's
cat has no role to play here.

The simple atomic clock and airplane test is fact, ie you can see that the two clocks are registering different times.

So in the sense of the ground its travelled back in time, but that said it cannot go back before it set off witout ftl

However this raises some interesting questions in my mind, if we accept motion as being a funtion of time, and we accept that the universe is expanding, what happens if it starts to contract?, do we experience -ve motion, ie past time travel rather than future time travel?

bonkey · 09-10-2001 9:03am

In the recent FTL thread, we were discussing time and its rate.

The whole thing about clocks beating at different rates is fine, but it still raises a number of questions.

Has this effect (time passing at different rates) been successfully tested using a variety of different measuring techniwues at once? I ask because to me, it is meaningless to take two atomic clocks, put one on earth, put one in a high orbit, and then show that lower gravity and/or high velocity has resulted in "time dilation".

Unless you have at least two sets of clocks, which work off two mutually exclusive principles, but which are equally as accurate, and perform the experiment, the answer is meaningless. You need to show that all test clocks on earth remained in sync, and all test-clocks on the aircraft / satellite remained in sync, while the two sets went out of sync with each other. Otherwise, you have shown nothing.

As to the whole black hole thing....why do people keep insisting that a black hole must "go" somewhere? Is it so inconceivable that it is basically a situation where a large amount of matter gets condensed into a tiny point? This point may be a singularity (unproven) of effectively 0 size, and thus infinite density, or it may be slightly larger than a singularity (if some form of "maximal density" restriction exists), but it is simply a lot of stuff packed into a tiny space.

If the stuff inside the hole was escaping - if you could pass through a black hole - then wouldnt this mean that the matter in black holes escapes - which in turn destroys the black hole?

A black hole "leading" somewhere is a self-contradicting argument, unless you want to discard all of modern physics and replace it with some fanciful model which allows black holes to be something else. A StarTrek physics model, if you will.

But if you're discarding physics, why keep the existence of black holes at all? They have never been directly observed, and what has been observed and is believed to be a black hole is based on observing behaviour which matches that of the black hole our current physics model predicts!

In other words, if a black hole isnt what we predict it to be at present, then we have absolutely no model to show that it should exist, or any indication or observed fact that it does or can exist. Asking where it might lead is kinda discarding the possibility of its existence in the first place!

jc

OSiriS · 10-10-2001 7:52am

Someone has stated earlier that at what ever point in time you want to take, any given person will react in a given way to what ever event is about to happen. There is not an infinite number of ways they would have reacted, if you are talking about the future, then yes there are infinite reactions based on an infinite events, which is why the future cannot be predicted. But a person will only react in one way because no matter how many times you look at the one event in time it will be the same.

Now someone else suggested that outside forces could potentially change events to cause a variation in someone's reactions. How so? You can go as deep as examining it through Chaos Theory, but this is alltogether unnecessary. Without some kind of outside influence events will always unfold the same way. The exact same speck of dust will float to land on the exact same piece of ground. Taking the Universe as a whole, there cannot be any outside influences, hence events will transpire the same.

Hypothetically you could say some time-travelling buffoon could be this outside source of disruption, but seeing as time-travel is currently only a fantasy of science fiction writers and dreamers hoping to prove it is possible, these what-ifs are inconsequential. Timetravel is not even a theory at this stage, current knowledge of physics suggests that it never will be.

I hops all this makes sense, because it is diffult to espress thought coheriently at 7am when you have been up all night:P

Yurmasyurda · 17-10-2001 3:12am

Originally posted by NekkidBibleMan
I suppose we perceive time as being 2d because our brains aren't able to think in 4 dimensions.

If our brains are not able to think in 4 dimensions then what mentaller thought of a fourth dimension?

PS. Can't be @rsed searching the net

WhiteWashMan · 17-10-2001 7:20am

Originally posted by popinfresh
Personally, I'd say that that would slightly explain black-holes, it's not that they cause things tp disapear into oblivion, but when they are created, they pierce a hole in time (which I beleive is a sort of barrier that keeps us in a 3 dimensional state) therefore moving matter to a different place. ?

now, i only did 3 years of an applied physics degree in collage, however, i never came across anything that said black holes were time related.
in fact, ive never heard of anyone entering any. and if they did, ive never heard of anyone coming out the other side.

so, to say that they pierce a hole in time is alittle far fetched to say the least. what is known about black holes is that they are basically made up of very dense matter, usually an imploding star, where the gravitational pull is so great that light cannot escape. since the light does not escape, it cannot reflect, and therefore you dont see a black hole. you know one exists because light around the edges is refracted, or bent, out of shape.
there you go. a brief history of black holes. i suspect if you were to go into a black hole you would squashed smaller than a pin pr1ck before you even got to the event horizon.

its science, not star trek!

Hobbes · 18-10-2001 2:23am

Originally posted by Longfield
Flawed, if not a 100 people, what if i send a 1000 or a 100,000, within reason, they cannot all fail.

If it's a single fixed timeline then they are correct. The universe will stop you. It's possible it would stop you as simply not allowing you to travel back in time.

If it's multiple timelines then the second the person goes back in time they have already changed the future and are no longer on thier own timeline.

The possible is that there is one timeline which isn't fixed, which means it can be forced into an infinite loop. At which point your screwed. If it did happen, how would you know? Because energy and matter would be exactly the same at each timeframe then you would never realise there was a time loop

anyway, point is.. why would anyone want to time travel?

Bob the Unlucky Octopus · 23-10-2001 3:32pm

I have nothing against freedom of expression BoneCollector and neither does DeVore (one would assume that is why anyone would tolerate your nick- many sites would nerf it for being offensive). I merely object to people consistently and knowingly posting in the wrong place, and then complaining when I edit, then delete one of said posts. There is nothing remotely scientific about anything that you've posted in this thread- they bear more resemblance to the flashy sci-fi comics of the fifties than to anything even hinting at scientific material. In fact, I expected to see a pop-out scratch 'n sniff bulbous plastic alien when I read your last post. This is a science board- which means that what you post here, must have bearing and recognition in the scientific world- or at least a following. I was making the perfectly legitimate point that while I consider your postulations to be absolute drivel from a scientific point of view- from the more facetious stand-point of cult television...you have a better place you could have gone to post most of what you did in this thread.

BoneCollector · 23-10-2001 4:48pm

to be quite honest.. all i see here is someone imposing personal opinion on Name, gender and the right to reply.
if you cannot be objective without letting your personal opinions influence your judgement you should not be a moderator.
it is tandamount to racism.
keep your personal opinions about other people to yourself and
try be objective rather than opionated as you have just displayed in this post.

Bob the Unlucky Octopus · 23-10-2001 6:23pm

Originally posted by BoneCollector
to be quite honest.. all i see here is someone imposing personal opinion on Name, gender and the right to reply.
if you cannot be objective without letting your personal opinions influence your judgement you should not be a moderator.
it is tandamount to racism.
keep your personal opinions about other people to yourself and
try be objective rather than opionated as you have just displayed in this post.

Bonecollector- make some god-damned sense. I'll address your non-existent points in the same order as you tried to make them:

1. I don't *know* your name...how on earth could I impose on what you decided to call yourself?

2. Gender- Why does that have anything to do with the drivel you post?

3. Right to reply- Reply to what? You start supremely vague and fantastical threads, and call that a right to reply? Begging your most sacred pardon, but no boards.ie user (including myself) is entitled to post irrelevant spittle consistently and without impunity.

4. Racism - OH NOEEE!11!!¬!!"~1! That entire race of people who use a Woody Woodpecker avatar you mean? I don't quite know what to say to that.

5. My personal opinion about you- I can't hold one, having never met you. My opinion about what you post on this board is best left unsaid I think...our younger viewers are best spared the exact declamation of what I think of it.

6. I am being perfectly objective- you're spamming this board with irrelevant and mind-numbing drivel. And all you had to do was post it in the appropriate place...and it no longer becomes dribble, but a relevant post. Try it sometime!

7. Of course I'm opinionated...and I'm entitled to express that opinion on this board- as long as I do it in a scientific manner. Do I really need to keep telling you this?

In conclusion, ladies and gents...another dissatisfied user, and another Ghandi soon to be awarded I imagine. Huzzah.

Occy

!!The 4th dimension!!

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