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How to imagine ten dimesions

  • 02-12-2008 1:15pm
    #1
    BenjAii
    Closed Accounts Posts: 545 ✭✭✭


    I can sort of follow the logic to this, but am not sure anyone could get their head around it unless they went off and meditated in the Himalayas for ten years.

    Apparently all the possible time lines, in all the possible universes that could have been created exist as a single point in the 10th dimension.

    Vid is 11 mins long & I think he makes it about as clear as anyone could ......



Comments

  • #2
    5uspect
    Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 10,518 Mod ✭✭✭✭5uspect


    Thats a good video, but you can also deal with higher dimensions in purely physicial space without considering time.

    Here's another video.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDaKzQNlMFw&feature=related

    I use 3, 4 and 5D arrays fairly regularly in work, head bending stuff.


  • #3
    bonkey
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,443 ✭✭✭✭bonkey


    Reminds me of hte old mathematicians joke...

    How do you visualise a 7-dimensional space?
    Easy - visualise an n-dimensional space, and then let n approach 7.


  • #4
    5uspect
    Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 10,518 Mod ✭✭✭✭5uspect


    I find the easiest way to use higher dimensions is as a means of storage of increasingly large data sets

    A 1D array is a single column vector.
    A 2D array is an array of rows and columns like a page of the phone book.
    A 3D array is a phone book, a series of 2D arrays stacked up.
    A 4D array is a series of phone books stored on a shelf or side by side on the table.
    A 5D array is a series of post offices each containing phone books.
    A 6D array is a series of countries each with a bunch of Post offices...


    And you can on on and on. Of course you can simply concatenate the higher dimensions onto the third in this case.


  • #5
    Morbert
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,457 ✭✭✭Morbert


    BenjAii wrote: »
    I can sort of follow the logic to this, but am not sure anyone could get their head around it unless they went off and meditated in the Himalayas for ten years.

    Apparently all the possible time lines, in all the possible universes that could have been created exist as a single point in the 10th dimension.

    Vid is 11 mins long & I think he makes it about as clear as anyone could ......


    The 'dimensions' mentioned in this video have absolutely nothing to with the descriptions used by physicists. It is complete nonsense, and should be ignored completely.


  • #6
    r3nu4l
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,399 ✭✭✭✭r3nu4l


    Morbert wrote: »
    The 'dimensions' mentioned in this video have absolutely nothing to with the descriptions used by physicists. It is complete nonsense, and should be ignored completely.

    So what dimensions are used by physicists when examining such problems? Any extra info you have would be useful :)


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  • #7
    Morbert
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,457 ✭✭✭Morbert


    r3nu4l wrote: »
    So what dimensions are used by physicists when examining such problems? Any extra info you have would be useful :)

    There are quite a few different types of 'dimensions', and by that I mean there are different ways of defining dimensions. But lets start simple. A space has bases - sets of vectors (think of vectors as directions) that cannot be built from other vectors but, together, can be used to build any other vector in that space - and the size of these sets define the number of dimensions of a space. For example, you can think of three dimensional space as having bases with three vectors (often called length, width, and height). These three vectors are independant of one another (you will never be able to build a 'height' vector from a bunch of 'width' and 'length' vectors) but, togethar, can be used to specify any vector, or any location in space. Add a fourth independent vector (time) and you have the dimensions of spacetime.

    Now, these are the only dimensions we currently have evidence for. Higher dimensions are purely hypothetical, with little more than mathematical conjecture to back them up. One of the most common higher dimensional constructs is a "Calabi Yau Manifold" which adds an extra 6 spatial dimensions to spacetime. These manifolds have several properties which are interesting to physicists for various reasons, but they bear no resmblence to the extra dimensions in the video. They add another 6 (compactified and curled up) directions to space, but they have nothing to do with time travel or free will.

    The important thing to remember is higher dimensions are mathematical in nature, and cannot be properly visualised by humans. We must be content with understanding mathematical characteristics of higher dimensions, as that is where the insight lies. Any attempt to visualise some intrinsic higher dimensional space will ultimately be arbitrary and wrong.


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