4D shapes.

I think what people don't talk about enough is that to say we're in a 3-dimensional space is NOT in actuality a statement about the space we're in. There's nothing sacred about a dimension.

Dimensions are the way in which we describe the space we're in. And it turns out that of the infinite axes you can draw in a 360 degree sphere (emanating out from a single point in the center), there are only THREE in which you can have a value along one axis but no value along the others.

So something can have a positive value in X, but be zero in both Y and Z. Etc, etc.

Thus, if we want to describe the spatial characteristics of something, or the location of something relative to something else, we need to independently specify the three entirely independent dimensions.

That's why we cannot talk of building something in a fourth spatial dimension -- there just isn't a fourth spatial direction that can be described independently of the other three. This doesn't take into account the time component of spacetime, but that's not the question you're asking -- you're asking about creating something that is 4 dimensional.

And if you take a piece of paper and DRAW a 3D shape, it's not actually a 3D shape -- it's 2D but it has perspective cues that make us think of a 3D shape. So whatever you draw, you're not going to make it any more than 2D, and until we can actually see in 4 spatial dimensions we're not going to be able to conceive of it as 4-dimensional.

Ever seen the film Cube 2: hypercube? It's awesome. This is a hypercube, the tesseract... Image:Tesseract.gif - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia there is a wikipedia article and a 4d shape applet as well. I never really new got the concept but I like the idea of 'em.

DAN.

Hyperdimentional space is simply a mathematical topic which has shown somewhat fruitful when applied to theoretical quantum physics such as string theory, the idea is simply this:for a single dimention, you have a single line, no up and down, just back and forth. for two dimensions, you have a plane, up down right and left. You get this plane by sliding the sinle line in the diretions orthoganal(perpendicular) to it, ieup and down infinitely. The same is true of 3 dimentional space, you move the plane orthogonally to itself in to get R^3 space(3 dimentional space), imagine taking a piece of paper and it leaving a trail in the shape of a box as you move it form left to right and then imagine that the paper is infinite in length and height. Now, you can continue ths rule mathematically to R^n dimentions(where n is any integer).
You can make a 3d "shadow" of a 4d object, just as you can make a 2d trace of a 3d object, but the 2d trace is somewhat useless without an experiential base for 3 dimentions. Such considerations are only mathematically understandable and applicable to physical models such as string theory; they are fruitful in calculating physical laws and their consequences, but you cannot experience them visually.

Zetetic11235, I like that comment,'you can make a 3d "shadow" of a 4d object.' What we see beyond our skies, isn't that a 3d "shadow", making the universe a 4d shape. I don't believe half of what we can see is there and I don't mean the time factor effect of the speed of light.

Hypothetically this would imply that the universe we see is unfolding to expand beyond a diameter. The term unfolding would mean that at some point the view in our screen is not a direct view and may take several diversions from a direct line. Hence our vision out into the universe may be no different than the road from Chicago to LA, while the direct route would carve through the land.

I am not saying that the diameter is the boundary, simply that at the point we see from the west no longer travels east from there. I know also that a compass doesn't point in space but hypothetically, I hope you get my meaning.

Consider this: Our 3 dimensional relm can be thought of as a composite of an infinite number of infinitely thin 2 dimentional relm, and just as we pass through the "inside" of these two dimentional rels and would have a blob like look to us, so can a 4 dimentional object pass through each three dimentional subspace as a 3d partial entity or touch the "insides" of 3d objects. Not exactly scientific, but it is a pretty cool thought experiment.

I don't think you can pass anything through a two dimensional realm as it doesn't have an inside, two opposisng magnets,ie; north to north, will connect provided the realm is between them. So would this make magnetism two dimentional or is it simply gravity that is.

What? You don't seem to have a great grasp of of magnetism, its a field force as is gravity, the have a spherical radius where the strength of the pull increases with the proximity of the affected object.

For an object to be 4D, you would have to percieve things at a 360 degree angle.
What makes an object 3D is from the view is see it in. So a 4D veiw would be like a whole other dimension literally.

In my opinion if there was such thing as 4D or other higher dimensions we as humans wouldn't be capable of perceiving it.

Why not? What difference is it to a qualia of a 4D experience than of a 3D experience, I mean yes there is definitely a big leap, but I'm sure cognitive processes would remain much the same, just more complex synapses. The best I've got so far is of 360 degree interpretation/peception.:ya-think:

I mean by thinking that way you can sort of get an idea of what it represents visually, so it can't be impossible.

No mathematical rule is empirically validated unless its proof is constructionist. A platonic solid exists as nothing but a set of rules which can be physically approximated.

Consider this: In order that a platonic solid that is dense in the mathematical sense, i.e. consisting of infitely many points, be empirically valid beyond its rule set, there must exist an object of infinite constituent parts,i.e. an object of infinite size. This object is still not mathematically dense, as it would have to have infinte mass and contain zero spatial gaps, i.e. not be made of subatomic particles (since they have substantial gaps). There is no such thing as a platonic solid outside of the set of rules which constitute it, only approximations by physical manipulation. This is where theoretical physics runs into trouble. The assertions it makes are based upon mathematical constructs that are not necessarily valid unless they haveall the constrictive data. Physics is an experimentally constrictive branch of mathematics. If the mathematics proveds a very close descriptive approximation of physical beharvior, it is adopted into the physical model.

The language of mathematics is tautological and consistent but incomplete, its relationship with physical reality is essentially equivalent to the relationship of ordinary language with physical experience, but it is more constrictive and limited at the benefit of being more exact.

To see the front, top, bottom, left side, and right side, and the back in one collective precieved picture.

Hence, all six dimension's of a single object would come togeather to make one single preceiveable dimension.

But they the depth of the side's portrayed with the other side's would make a conflicting image that are brain's cannot visulize, that's why you would have 6 diffrent t.v's that show each of the six side's...

The problem is the perception of depth....

And light is the key to preceiving... and are eye's take in light as if we where looking into a shoe box, hence we can see all five side's but four of those side's will be effected by perception of depth.

So to see all side's in one preceivable picuture in a single fram of time, you would have to see each side of 6 diffrent screen's, or on one screen with each of the 6 side's overlaped on each other with each side color coded with no depth to them.

So it's like your allway's looking at the bottom of a box, where all the side's in side of the box have fallen onto the bottom of the box and no longer have any preceivable depth to them.

(Also are brain's do not support that kind of visual format...no dose are eye's that take's in that light to make the picture that it is reflecting off of...)

So it is utterly impossable for somone to see an object from all 6 side's like how we see 1-5 side's( 1-5 side's with depth to them, Sky view of a person)

Light just dosnt function that way, nor dose the human body.

(Cube 2: hypercube also pointed this fact out about the depth perception of light from all side's of an object presented in one precievable frame of timel)

i think you are right, picture a line, then picture it turning into a square, then picture that turning into a cube, its impossible to visualise the next step.

imagine you are watching tv, in order for a real 3d object to exist on tv it would have to break through the glass of your tv screen. so in order for a 4d object to exist in our 3d world it would have to break it. you can have the illusion of 3 dimensions on tv with shadows and things like that, and also the illusion of a 4d object wich is the "hypercube"

I'm with socrato and corax here on this one. We live in a 3D universe as far as we no it. Besides if there was any sign of 4D objects in the world for example than wouldn't we be able to see them. Ofcourse not because we don't have that ability as humans to be able to picture it.

Astro, your view is a little narrowed on the belief that 4D perception mingles with 3D perception. Perhaps there is a state of awareness that is like a holy superposition of mixed relations with 3D and 4D but I doubt it syncs.

What if dimension is perceived by the mind, and there are no actual dimensions. Dimensions are an establishment of the mind to organize reality to give it potential. We could all of a sudden be living in a 4D reality but not changing the actuality of the environment, just significantly changing the potential it has.

We simply can't visualize 4Dness. There is no 4D "realm" unless you refer reality as the realm. Is there any evidence indicating that there are other dimensional realms? Now, if scientists can get a snapshot of a graviton just as it leaves the membrane we currently exist in, assuming there is a membrane (there's no evidence to prove this kind of theorizing right of wrong), then I will change my mind. But for now I'm working with what makes sense.

If suddenly our environment were to change to a 4D reality then we would not know it had happened because we cannot perceive it. What do you mean by my view of 4D is narrow. 4D perception does not mingle with 3D perception. We either exist in a 3D or some other dimension. Obviously its 3D because that is how we perceive it as.

What do you mean by gravitons and membranes?

Except that our memory would probably be able to interpret the difference we made in the altered perceptions. We can remember dreams as vague, not as vivid as the real world, and very young as nearly black and white.

Why not remember the 3D reality and then perceive 4D. Are you saying that 4D would overwrite the memory, as if experience shifts all aspects of information?

quote: Well don't we interpret a dream as being in the same dimension as reality anyways.

response: you obviously don't get what I mean. Its a waste for me to reply as a post just saying this.

Well don't we interpret a dream as being in the same dimension as reality anyways.