Quote:

Wednesday said:
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?



Ok.

First dimension is one plane. Back and front: _______
shape: line

Second dimension is two planes, back front up down: ___|\/+
shape: circle, square

Third dimension is three planes. Back, front, up, down, left, right.
shape: sphere, cube

Fourth dimension is four planes. Back, front, up, down, left, right, ana, kata.
shape: hypersphere, hypercube

Fourth dimensional space is a direction you can't point to, just like the third dimension is a place impossible to point to in a 2-D plane of existance.

Pretend for a minute that we are the second dimension. We live like slabs of lunchmeat slithering around on a great big flat plane or existance.

side-view observation: -------0---- (the 0 is you)
top view observation:
++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++
++++0+++++++++
++++++++++++++ (the 0 is you)

Now, no matter how you move around in your 2-D plane, you see only what is in the 2-D plane. Does that make sense? If not cut me off here.

---------------------------------

Now let's add gravity to this 2-D world. The most often used parallel drawn to this is to imagine the 2-D world as a sheet with a ball on it. The ground 'dips' where any mass is.
2-D side view observation with gravity: ----------\0/-----
You, as a 2-D inhabitant, cannot see anything outside of the two dimensions. The weird thing here is that your 2-D universe extends into the third dimension. In this sort of circumstance you could only observe the effect of the third dimension on your world.

To observe 3-D effects in 2-D would be like us seeing the 4-D curvature of the universe in 3-D. We can do this. Light, as it travels through the universe, is bent by large massive objects. This is evidant by watching stars pass behind the sun or even the moon, the star seems to 'jump' from one side to the other as the closer massive object passes in front of it. The light of the distant object is split around the gravitational dip in the universe and shows to the side of the moon when it is really behind it.

.....* (star)
.....|
.....|
.....|
..../.\
.../ 0 \
..*.....*


____ ____

stop me here if you want more explination.

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Ok. So we can observe effects from higher dimensions without actually being able to manipulate them, right? Like light observations. We can't force the starlight to jump without the moon there and we can't make the star not jump when the moon IS there. This is the same way it would be for a 2-D person.

Now lets imagine that instead of being on a "flat" plane, the 2-D person likes on the surface of a 3-D sphere. They still live a flat life, but the universe is a big ball. Now imagine that the ball is expanding at something around half the speed of light (arbitrary number) and accelerating. Now imagine the 2-D person wants to reach the end of the universe. Mr.Dos can go in any direction in a straight line (for him) and never reach the end of the universe.

It's the same for us except stepped up a dimension or two.

Old men, fear me! You will shatter under my ruthless apathetic assault!

Uschi - 2
Old Men - 0

"I am convinced that this world is of no importance, and that the only people who care about dates are imbeciles and Spanish teachers." -- Jean Arp, 1921

"If Jesus came back and saw what people are doing in his name, he would never never stop throwing up." - Max von Sydow, "Hannah and Her Sisters"