Is there a fourth Dimension?

Shazam0 · Post by **Shazam0** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 10:58 pm

This morning I was working with a Graduate Student (Bryan) and he explained to me that he needed a protien gell with four dimensions... So we have proved that time speeds up as your velocity increases relative to someone elses velocity and time. Thus time is not a constant. Assuming time is forth dimension how would one plot it on a graph? Bryan drew a cube and then he attached to it another plane... but the chalk got all screwy and I didnt catch the concept. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

deth1977 · Post by **deth1977** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 12:59 am

If time is a fourth dimension then the only way to plot such a graph would be to use time.. instead of drawing it up on chalk why not use a computer to plot the change over time? thus a fourth dimension is added in a way that we can understand. i.e A line would be a dot that lasts for 1 second. a Cube would be a square that apears and then disappears into 4 dots that then reapears and disapears for good.
a filled cube would be a square that appears for a certain number of seconds and then disapears.

Pendragon · Post by **Pendragon** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 6:38 am

I didnt know that time is the 4th dimension, according to Einstein, I thought the fourth dimenstion was space-time, not time alone.

The example given by Einstein was an apple falling to the earth. It does not fall in a straight line, as it falls, the earth rotates, so that it falls in a curve landing away from the tree. I guess the curve is your graph.

I also thought that time slowed down the faster you went, relative to someone slower or standing still. Therefore, astronauts age less when in space compared to when they land.

deth1977 · Post by **deth1977** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 5:38 pm

Actually Space-Time is all 4 dimensions put together... sorta like existence. he was asking about the 4th dimension specifically... kinda like front and back is one dimensions. left right is another. up down is yet another. making 3 dimensions relative you your position. the fourth would be your forward motion through time. what ever is causing the universe to expand is causing us to move forward in time.

Pendragon · Post by **Pendragon** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 6:33 pm

But how do you mean asking about the 4th dimension specifically when you say 4th dimension is all dimensions together? By asking about it specifically, it is in fact refering to space-time, and not one particular 'part' of it. What makes it a dimension is that it consists of all parts, you cant pick one particular part and say 'this is the 4th dimensional part'. We are 3 dimensional creatures and cannot experience all time and space co existing together, ie. we cant see the future.

...well i think so anyways

deth1977 · Post by **deth1977** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 6:51 pm

there are approx 26 dimensions If I remember correctly. those dimensions either are not within our ability to sense... or they are compressed down to the plank size. i.e have never expanded. a dimensions can be taken out of context... for instance a drawing is two dimensional. it has no depth. depth is a dimension. everytime you graph you do so using XYZ dimensions. XYZ and i i being time

Arakasi Takeda · Post by **Arakasi Takeda** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 11:56 pm

Alright. Now you're going to make me dig out my college diploma and dust it off. My major was in Physics....

The number of dimensions in the Universe depends on your acceptance of a variety of theories about the ultimate structure of the Universe and the physical laws that govern it. In General Relativity, you need four dimensions to make sense of the theory. Most people think of these dimensions as three spacial and one time dimension, but it is more accurate to think of the entire bundle as a four dimensional space-time. As an individual approaches the speed of light, time and space begin to resemble each other so closely that they might be considered interchangable, so far as the laws of physics are concerned.

When diagraming universe events in four dimensional space time, imagine a sphere extending out from a single point in space. Now, imagine that the surface of this sphere is three dimensional, instead of two dimensional. If you were sitting at a point on this surface, you'd see all other points around you expanding away from you as time progressed. The expansion of the sphere is, itself, treated as another dimension, the 'time' dimesion.

Gravitational objects distort the three dimensional surface of this 'hypersphere', creating dents in space which extend into the time dimension (actually referred to as a space-like dimension in physics discussions, adding a further layer of confusion. Events entirely within the space dimension are referred to as time-like). The greater the gravitational field. the greater the spacial distortion, and, thus, greater the distortion of time itself near the field. That's why General Relativity suggests that, as you approach the edge of a black hole (an infinitely large space-time distortion), time slows down and then stops. The time distorition around other objects is smaller, but scientists have been able to prove that time really is affected by gravity, using airplanes holding atomic clocks moving at different altitudes in different directions around the earth.

Now, that's just four dimensions. If you want to accept any of the competing theories that try to integrate quantum mechanics and general relativity, your total goes up to ten, twelve, twenty-six, or even an infinite number of dimensions.

Anyone who wants to hear my lecture for hours on super-symmetry, super-gravity, super-strings, branes, GUTs, and ten thousand other concepts that make people wish to bash their brains into pulp, let me know and I'll continue.

Arakasi Takeda, BS - Physics (Theoretical)

deth1977 · Post by **deth1977** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 11:46 pm

Very well said. that was what I was trying to say... only put in a more ... easily understood fashion.

BTW... that hyper spere... sounds like the begining of hyperspace theory.
go to the near center of the sphere and then move 2 inchs and then move back to the edge of the sphere and find that you have moved 2 millions light years.

Shazam0 · Post by **Shazam0** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 4:21 pm

Well said AT. Clarifying term : time slows. As you approuch the speed of light your reference of time doesnt change; if your holding a stop watch it doesnt stop, but keeps ticking away the seconds same as it ever did. However, as you approach the speed of light every thing else not moving will age or pass through time extremely quickly in comparison to you. I dont remember the formula... its like 100 hundreds of years per second at speed of light or something...

Another factor not totally pertanite to this conversation is that our mass increases as we increase our velocity. As you approach the speed of light your mass will increase and become titanically huge.

AT your avatar is awesome!

deth1977 · Post by **deth1977** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 6:41 pm

yes... as you approach the speed of light your mass increases exponentially so it will take an infinite ammount of energy to reach the speed of light. unless of course you were made up of photons.. then you could never slow down below the speed of light. or a tachyon in which it would take an infinite ammount of energy to slow to the speed of light... imagine living as a tachyon(assuming they exist). you can only exist at Superluminal speeds. BTW... if you look at it from a supersphere point of view... as you approach the speed of light your velocity through time increases... i.e you start to travel faster through time. of course your frame of reference doesnt change you age form your point of view the same but the universe begins to go in fast forward.

Synedri · Post by **Synedri** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 6:55 pm

deth1977 wrote:unless of course you were made up of photons.. then you could never slow down below the speed of light

Room temperature ruby slows light
28 March 2003

US researchers use a ruby to slow light to 57 meters per second at room temperature.

Using a technique known as spectral hole burning, US researchers have slowed light down in a ruby at room temperature. The researchers say their simple technique, which slowed the group velocity of light to 57.5 m/s, may now lead to controllable optical delay lines, which would find uses in telecommunications and computer networks. (Physical Review Letters 90 113903)

Being able to slow light down is nothing new. But up until now the phenomenon has only been seen at cryogenic temperatures and in exotic gases such as rubidium.

Robert Boyd and colleagues from the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester use an argon-ion laser operating at 514.5 nm as their light source. The laser's output is then passed through an attenuator and an eletro-optic modulator to generate millisecond-long pulses.

The rest of this article can be found at http://optics.org/articles/news/9/3/20/1

I have heard theories that the speed of light has been changing since the Beginning. If you don't believe in a beginning, how about The Big Bang then?

Shazam0 · Post by **Shazam0** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 9:59 pm

Again totally unrelated...So photons only last a split second but because they travel at the speed of light they 'last' forever... what about if their slowed down? whats their half life? Also if we accelorate at a constant speed in space with extremely little friction... our top speed now is limitied to the ice shield or whatever infront of our ship, and its ability to hold together the incredible amount of mass it becomes... right? Then if we were able to build something like this we'd only want it to travel at 'high' speeds for a very breif time so that we would still be alive and around to 'see' it. Thats interesting... as science progresses and we are able to travel at near light speeds we wont realize it or 'see' someone return from such a trip for a long long time...

deth1977 · Post by **deth1977** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 12:53 am

<regarding the constant speed>basically it wont. It will eventually have no affect. the energy being applied will have a weaker affect as it accelerates over time. until the energy you apply doesnt really have any affect at all.

as for slowing down light the only way to do it is to send it through einstien boson condisate. (matter that has been frozen to such a degree it seems to phase out(not the proper word just what it looks like on the computer models and in the microscope). light cannot be slowed down using conventional means. if you take energy away from a photon you simply change its wavelength. <look into red and blue shift referenced in Astronomy>

also a photon has been manipulated into superluminal speed as well. I forgot the name of the affect Casmir or something like that. send it between two charged plates in a vacuum with less than a micron of seperation between the two plates.

Synedri · Post by **Synedri** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 7:44 pm

deth1977 wrote:as for slowing down light the only way to do it is to send it through einstien boson condisate. (matter that has been frozen to such a degree it seems to phase out(not the proper word just what it looks like on the computer models and in the microscope). light cannot be slowed down using conventional means.

Read the article I linked to. They did it at room temperature.

Shazam0 · Post by **Shazam0** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 9:01 pm

deth1977 wrote:
as for slowing down light the only way to do it is to send it through einstien boson condisate. (matter that has been frozen to such a degree it seems to phase out(not the proper word just what it looks like on the computer models and in the microscope). light cannot be slowed down using conventional means.

Read the article I linked to. They did it at room temperature.

LOL!!!!

deth1977 · Post by **deth1977** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 10:21 pm

Synedri wrote:
deth1977 wrote:as for slowing down light the only way to do it is to send it through einstien boson condisate. (matter that has been frozen to such a degree it seems to phase out(not the proper word just what it looks like on the computer models and in the microscope). light cannot be slowed down using conventional means.
Read the article I linked to. They did it at room temperature.

Conventional Means meaning rockets and or adding or removing energy from the photon. as for the article.. it sounded like the article I had read previously hence the reason I did not read it. thnks. Room temp thats cool... the next step is to try to get a photon to move ftl at room temp.

Shazam0 · Post by **Shazam0** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 10:30 pm

For the other ppl in the corp who've only taken a year of physics please what is does this mean :

the next step is to try to get a phonton to move ftl at room temp.

deth1977 · Post by **deth1977** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 5:10 pm

Shazam0 wrote:For the other ppl in the corp who've only taken a year of physics please what is does this mean :
the next step is to try to get a phonton to move ftl at room temp.

that was me typing too fast and getting too many incoming calls