I've been thinking...

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I've been thinking... How about that for a change?

#1 Sponge Tom

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Posted 19 August 2009 - 08:17 PM

Yeah, so I've been thinking about the fourth dimension a lot lately. I'm absolutely fascinated by the idea, but strangely, I'm not necessarily interested in reading about it. It seems more fun to try to figure it out.

Anyway, so my question is this: if I, being a three dimensional creature, successfully visualize and understand a 4D object, will my head asplode?

><>

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#2 JacaByte

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Posted 19 August 2009 - 10:43 PM

You do remember what the 4th dimension is, do you?

...don't you?

#3 Jeremiah

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Posted 20 August 2009 - 11:01 AM

I'm more concerned with 2D...and when he is coming back!

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#4 Sponge Tom

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Posted 20 August 2009 - 11:25 AM

QUOTE (JacaByte @ Aug 19 2009, 11:43 PM)

You do remember what the 4th dimension is, do you?

...don't you?

Oh no... you don't mean...?

><>

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#5 GutlessWonder

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Posted 21 August 2009 - 05:27 AM

Here's a fun little story from Heinlein about a guy who builds a 4-D house:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080115153446/.../heinlein1.html

"This world is set to break me"
@-/--
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#6 Sponge Tom

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Posted 21 August 2009 - 12:36 PM

QUOTE (GutlessWonder @ Aug 21 2009, 06:27 AM)

Here's a fun little story from Heinlein about a guy who builds a 4-D house:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080115153446/.../heinlein1.html

Awesome possum, man. Let's build it.

><>

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#7 Rickton

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Posted 21 August 2009 - 01:10 PM

Here's a fun little story from Danielewski about a guy who moves into a 4-D house:
http://www.amazon.com/House-Leaves-Mark-Z-...8222&sr=8-1

And more seriously, here's an interesting video that explores 10 dimensions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkxieS-6WuA

Currently making Possession 2, a game where you play as a ghost and possess your enemies.

#8 Sponge Tom

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Posted 21 August 2009 - 08:12 PM

Hmmm...I don't agree with the idea that the fourth dimension is time. Just earlier I finally grasped how a tesseract works (kind of), and I don't think the fourth dimension can be a spatial dimension and time at once. Basically, the way I see it is that us calling the fourth dimension time is the same as a hypothetical 2D person in a 2D world saying the third dimension is time just because he can't completely comprehend the third dimension because it simply can't exist in his universe.

><>

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#9 GutlessWonder

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Posted 21 August 2009 - 10:07 PM

There is no "the 4th dimension". There are many "a 4th dimensions". It can be considered spatial, temporal, or whatever you want it to be. It all depends on what you want it to apply to. (the same goes for 2D and 3D as well, where a cartoon, which is two-dimensional artwork moving through a 3rd dimension of time, and is henceforth 3D)

It really just all depends on how you view space, time, and everything, and how you want to define it.

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#10 Sponge Tom

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Posted 21 August 2009 - 11:03 PM

Ok... So I prefer to look at it as spatial. It's harder to figure out that way. At least, that's how it seems so far....

><>

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#11 Veritus Dartarion

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Posted 22 August 2009 - 12:58 AM

QUOTE (GutlessWonder @ Aug 21 2009, 03:27 AM)

Here's a fun little story from Heinlein about a guy who builds a 4-D house:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080115153446/.../heinlein1.html

Loved it. And the Joshua Tree reference was icing on the cake.

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#12 Pufer

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Posted 22 August 2009 - 03:35 AM

QUOTE (GutlessWonder @ Aug 21 2009, 04:27 AM)

Here's a fun little story from Heinlein about a guy who builds a 4-D house:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080115153446/.../heinlein1.html

I totally thought of that story upon reading the OP. Mad props.

-Pufer

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#13 GutlessWonder

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Posted 22 August 2009 - 06:11 AM

QUOTE (Pufer @ Aug 22 2009, 03:35 AM)

I totally thought of that story upon reading the OP. Mad props.

-Pufer

I only found it recently. The entire process was spawned from watching Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks, being vaguely reminded of a book I read in elementary school that I couldn't remember the name of but remembered that it had mentioned tesseracts, so I looked that up on Wikipedia (the book, by the way, was "A Stitch in Time"). From there I got to reading all about fourth dimensional objects and the like, and there happened to be link to Heinlein's story at the bottom of one of the pages. So, done and done.

"This world is set to break me"
@-/--
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#14 Hamster

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Posted 24 August 2009 - 05:52 PM

ITT sandcastles built on the surface of lakes.

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#15 Pufer

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Posted 25 August 2009 - 12:30 AM

Christ-castles?

-Pufer

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who said it, even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." -The Buddha

#16 mrxak

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Posted 10 September 2009 - 07:45 PM

The fourth dimension exists as any other dimension does, but we are only able to perceive a slice of it at any particular instant of our existence, with things getting blurry in the distance going off from one side of that slice. That's not to say that there is such a thing as time, merely that from the point of your 4D shape in the fixed, 4D universe, you can only see 3 dimensions plus a fuzzy outline of part of the fourth. The appearance of free will is illusory. Just as you cannot alter one side of the slice you are able to faintly make out, you cannot alter the other side that is hidden to you. The appearance of traveling through time at a steady unceasing march is also illusory. Your point of view "now" can make out the blurred "past", but that does not rule out seeing a greater part of the 4D universe "later", or less of it "earlier". The present is the only meaningful concept, but there is no order to our moments, only the blurred outlines in the distance at one end of the slice at any given point. We could easily be jumping around, scrubbing the "timeline", with awareness of only 3 and a fraction dimensions.

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#17 Pufer

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Posted 22 September 2009 - 01:22 AM

I take your blurry past and raise you ethereal chattels.

-Pufer

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who said it, even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." -The Buddha

#18 Sundered Angel

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Posted 22 September 2009 - 05:48 PM

QUOTE (Pufer @ Sep 22 2009, 06:22 AM)

I take your blurry past and raise you ethereal chattels.

-Pufer

Are they edible?

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#19 Pufer

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Posted 23 September 2009 - 12:37 AM

Sure, but they have a somewhat insubstantial texture and fleeting flavor.

-Pufer

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who said it, even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." -The Buddha

#20 Sundered Angel

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Posted 26 September 2009 - 10:33 PM

QUOTE (Pufer @ Sep 23 2009, 06:37 AM)

Sure, but they have a somewhat insubstantial texture and fleeting flavor.

-Pufer

Good enough for me. I'll compensate you immaterially, eventually.

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#21 Luke

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Posted 12 October 2009 - 06:05 AM

elp! Can anybody hearOh thank heIs this the Aresard? Well I knnds crazy but songemot ad a thought opened a rift in the universe through whicbriefly communicate with you!I'pped in the fourth sion and I've beening to geouteed to keep Tom thinking!!

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