Thread: Have you ever had a four dimensional experience

  1. #1
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    Have you ever had a four dimensional experience

    The fourth dimension is really awesome. I'm not just talking about math things for computer games, in fact I doubt many game programmers could even draw a geometric representation of the w coordinate of a four dimensional vector. But seriously, pretend you are shot and you go to a four dimensional surgeon. That surgeon could reach out and grab the bullet from inside you without ever touching you. How is this possible? Easy! It's possble in the same way it is possible for three dimensional beings to pick up and move objects on a plane without ever having to touch any boundries on that plane (because us nifty three dimensional folk can travel through the z coordinate while planar entities cannot, they suck).

    and the fourth dimension isn't time because none of the (infinitely small) three dimensional slices that make up four dimensonal hyperspace are related in anyway, similarly the infinite number of planes that make up space aren't related. If you believe the fourth dimension is time you are wrong and should be slapped...seriously.

    Sometimes I look at otherwise ordinary objects, and I try to imagine them as both infinitely thin but also tangible and real at the same time, and it makes me feel funny and sometimes I throw up.

    Have you had a four dimensional experience lately? I bet god is just a four dimensonal being playing tricks on us.

    EDIT: and if you disagree with me on any aspect you are wrong because I am a teenager and I know everything and my mom can beat you up, and I'm just pretending to be a poser.

  2. #2
    Banal internet user
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    My 4D experience...
    Code:
    char FourDimensional[2][2][2][2];

  3. #3
    Just because ygfperson's Avatar
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    My bet: silvercord has found drugs.

    Evidence:
    I try to imagine them as both infinitely thin but also tangible and real at the same time, and it makes me feel funny and sometimes I throw up.
    If you believe the fourth dimension is time you are wrong and should be slapped...seriously.
    I'm guessing a mixture of PHP and LSD.

    Seriously, though...

    how could the 4th spatial dimension affect us when we can't see any of its effects?

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    its a bad example but take a piece of paper (which isn't infinitely thin, but pretend it is), draw a fairly large circle then draw a piece of candy or a hot chick inside the circle, then draw a hungry/libidadious dude on the outside. That dude is a two dimensional being, and the circle you drew is some sort of a boundary.

    In order for this example to work you must assume with me that the paper is actually infinitely thin, and that the circle you drew is a solid boundary and that you cannot sneak between molecules. With those assumptions in place, it is by definition impossible for the dude to ever reach the candy/hot chick without crossing the boundary, this is because the dude only exists on the plane...he would have to break through that barrier in order to get at what is inside. Now let's say you (when I say you I mean the three dimensional being) place your finger next to the dude, and you encounter the same dilemma: you want the hot chick. But what do you the almighty three dimensional being have to do in order to make contact with the chick? All you have to do is lift up your finger from the piece of paper, put your finger above the chick, and then come squashing down. That's it! The same idea applies comparing three dimensional beings to four dimensional beings. And about the chick, well, I wouldn't go for her unless you like flat girls

    EDIT: and an aesthetically pleasing demonstration of what I mean:
    http://www.thedevelopersalliance.com...45/dilemma.JPG
    Last edited by Silvercord; 08-17-2003 at 12:14 AM.

  5. #5
    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
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    >> My bet: silvercord has found drugs.

    Heh.

    >> If you believe the fourth dimension is time you are wrong and should be slapped...seriously.

    So go slap Einstein.

    Seriously, though, where on earth (or elsewhere) did you come up with all of this?
    Code:
    #include <cmath>
    #include <complex>
    bool euler_flip(bool value)
    {
        return std::pow
        (
            std::complex<float>(std::exp(1.0)), 
            std::complex<float>(0, 1) 
            * std::complex<float>(std::atan(1.0)
            *(1 << (value + 2)))
        ).real() < 0;
    }

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    reading from various sources, my math book, googling for the fourth dimension

    EDIT:
    and as another neat example similar to the surgeon one, if I were a four dimension being I could reach out extend my arm (my hyperarm!) in the direction of your nose, and I could get an infinitely small distance away from your nose, but before I actually touch your nose I could poke the back of your head!

    four dimensional entities have instantaneous access to all slices of reality

    are you guys going to ostracize me? I have a fever I don't think you should, or maybe not a fever but i really do feel sick so i think you should be kind to me and give me candy
    Last edited by Silvercord; 08-17-2003 at 12:20 AM.

  7. #7
    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    heh, silver, you remind me of me when i took my first advanved university level linear algebra course. Just wait until you apply these principles to n-space and other various vector spaces. For example, why have 3-space with i, j, and k intersecting at 90 degrees?? Working in irregular coordinate spaces is fun Just think of the possibilites, by lifting your finger straight up off the paper, you could already be passed the boundry and over the girl, with a single linear tranlation along one unit axis. Or perhaps we could define quadratic properties for the coordiante systems.... ack, its not september yet..... over use of brain in non-school related activity.... i need some sugar.

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    I've already done some of what you said with gram-schmidt orthogonalization, it's actually really simple just take n vectors and subtract the projection of this vector onto all of the other vectors and it forms a perfect n dimensional basis!!!

    Just think of the possibilites, by lifting your finger straight up off the paper, you could already be passed the boundry and over the girl, with a single linear tranlation along one unit axis
    whoa

  9. #9
    verbose cat
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    Originally posted by ygfperson
    My bet: silvercord has found drugs.
    I'm betting Silvercord has found the book "Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions" by Edwin A. Abbot (or if you haven't, you should look into the book as it discusses these theories in a fictional story). That and "Sphereland: A Continuing Speculation on an Expanding Universe" by Dionys Burger which continues the story (and brings some sanity to the treatment of females! sheesh).

    To disagree with Silvercord's assertion that time cannot be the 4th dimension (and thus ask to be slapped...), think of a video game's instant replay (NHL Hitz for example). You can pause the replay and move the camera around in 3 dimensions (the 3 that we can see). You can also move foreward and backward in "time" to see where things were at any given time. As for things in one 3d timeslice not being related to things in another, take the puck in the replay. From one moment to the next, the puck is always somewhere. Furthermore, the puck is never in one place and then in the next instant on the other side of the arena. The two places where the puck are from one instant to the next would "touch" and thus might create some type of snake-like trail as it moves through time and space. (Unless of course a 4d creature grabs it and moves it in a manner we can't see or comprehend and puts it in on the other side of the arena in what we perceive as the next timeslice, or unless the GameCube is messed up... *deadpan*)

    Ok, here's where I'll stop so I don't write a book on the subject... What kinda drugs you got over there?

    -jEssYcAt

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    your example makes absolutely no sense. You didn't make us have any assumptions, therefore I can completely disregard your example because your video game is just a bunch of pixels calculated by projecting three dimensional rays onto the viewing plane and interpolating color and texture information across the vertices of triangles, and that the order and animation of these pixels has absolutely nothing to do time. You've gotta make assumptions first, then you can have a valid point, otherwise I'm finding where you live and beating the crap out of you. im serious, and if i lose ill get my girlfriend to do it

    read age of spiritual machines, that gets into time in a different manner (as in time is exponentially slowing down as the universe expands! awesome)

    EDIT: dimensions imply positive AND negative motion along that axis, therefore in order for time to be a dimension you can go backwards in time, which goes against the arrow of time theory which I believe. Instant replay isn't going back in time unless the order and position of all of the particles in the entire universe are in the exact same position as they were when you first viewed the replay
    Last edited by Silvercord; 08-17-2003 at 12:36 AM.

  11. #11
    verbose cat
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    Ahh, there you go making the assumption that time is fixed going in one direction. Just because we cannot see along the time axis doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

    If you were two dimensional, you wouldn't be able to see anything "above" or "below" you, therefore you would have no way to observe the 3rd dimension that exists around you. Likewise, we are only capable of seeing time in one direction. Our limitation doesn't necessarily limit the rest of the universe.

    And yes, I did make you have an assumption... You have the assumption that you can find me and beat me up! Er, uh, don't look at my nick over on the left, I don't *really* live in Pennsylvania... *wink*

    If you haven't read it yet and you are really into this subject, you should check out Flatland. Oh, and bring some Barenyeager when you come over.

  12. #12
    Registered User Nutshell's Avatar
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    Silvercord's idea is also in the book "Hyperspace". Very interesting concept that relates to other theories like superstrings and 10th dimension. If there's an online free fiction on the subject tell me.

  13. #13
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
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    You've gotta make assumptions first, then you can have a valid point.
    No offense to Silvercord, but thats a load of BS.

    To "Assume" is to make an "Ass" out of "U" and "Me."

    The more you assume the more you will fall away from facts and valid points, not get closer to them.
    My Website

    "Circular logic is good because it is."

  14. #14
    Toaster Zach L.'s Avatar
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    Yep, Flatland popped right into my mind when I saw this too.

    Arguing about the fourth dimension is pointless. Depending on how you order your nice little arrangement of basis vectors in your mind, the 4th one could be a spacial dimension, or it could be time, or perhaps some other quantity.
    The word rap as it applies to music is the result of a peculiar phonological rule which has stripped the word of its initial voiceless velar stop.

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    Four-dimensional beings would be excellent surgeons; for instance, they could remove the bullet from a shooting-victim as easily as you could remove the triangle from the middle of the circle in the earlier example. Just put your finger on the triangle, and push it over into the third dimension, move it a little left or right, and push it back into the plane of the two-dimensional being. This would be quite a miracle, as the circle feels the triangle diappear from its body and reappear next to it, seemingly from nowhere.

    Now that we've gone over the concept of the fouth dimension, questions still remain, "If there is a fourth dimension, where is it? Why don't we see it and why are we trapped in these three dimensions?" The obvious answer is that the fourth dimension does not exist. This makes perfect sense, just as the third dimension essentially does not exist to a being that exists only in a world of two dimensions.
    /me thinks you where reading this garbage
    http://www.mninter.net/~jmcmanus/4d/

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