Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Interesting ruminations by science writer Clifford Pickover:
http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/fourth.html
http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/fourth.html
What would a 4 dimensional being look like in your living room?
- Thread starter Magical Realist
- Start date
A 4-dimensional being in your living room would look like a static 3-dimensional being, but in motion.
Nice one.
But what would a four dimensional being look like if it never moved?
For me, seeing this in my mind's eye is easy. Take any complex object (like a refrigerator full of food), now choose some plane to represent time progression of its motion through 2 dimensions and pass that plane through the object. The plane represents how a 2-dimensional being would see the 3-dimensional refrigerator in motion as it "passed by" him. The 2D being would see all kinds of disparate objects popping into existence (cross sections of jars of olives, jugs of milk, sticks of butter, etc), and then popping back out, until the larger border of the refrigerator itself disappeared.
Motor Daddy
Valued Senior Member
A 4 dimensional being in my living room would look like a closed jack in the box. Jack's dimensions would be length, width, height, and position #1, which would be in the box, like we live in the earth, and the earth is in the solar system. Infinite dimensions in Absolute Reality!
Just extrapolate what you would look like to a two dimensional being! If you suck your arms in to a 2D universe they would only see the cross section of your arms penetrating through their reality, two circles, These circles from their perspective would change shape and diameter as you moved your arms up and down. The circles would also appear to move with reaction/action with anything in their reality.
@ ElectricFetus,
Here is a video describing your point
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWyTxCsIXE4
In 4th dimensional space I think they treat every direction as equally valid, so a 4th dimensional person would face every direction equally and to us might seem like a blurry sphere? I don't know, but I'm guessing they could present themselves as they wish much like we could to a 2D world.
Here is a video describing your point
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWyTxCsIXE4
In 4th dimensional space I think they treat every direction as equally valid, so a 4th dimensional person would face every direction equally and to us might seem like a blurry sphere? I don't know, but I'm guessing they could present themselves as they wish much like we could to a 2D world.
The dimensions that we imagine that are all above us, have the capacity to see below into the lower dimensions, the fifth sees the forth, the sixth sees the fifth etc. Otherwise these other dimensions don't learn anything new, the shapes are the same, the properties of matter are the same and so on....
And become pointless in exploring
And become pointless in exploring
What would a 3 dimensional being look like to a 2 dimensional being? Say you had a action figure on a plane or peice of paper, what would it look like to the stick figure drawn on it? As the action figure moved along the plane, the stick figure would only see the circle around the action figure as it moved across it. So then the stick figure would only see a cross section of the action figure. It would look really strange because to the stick figure the 3 dimensional being would like like it could change shapes and would just be a bunch of different circles changing in size. Two circles when it sees the legs, into one circle that would be his belt, then into three circles for the body and arms, and finally one circle when it saw his head.
So then to us a 4 dimensional being would look like a changing number of spheres that could change shapes and change into different amounts of spheres. The sphere would then be the 3 dimensional cross section of a 4 dimensional object. But if the object wasn't perfectly round it would just look like a strange metamorphic blob changing in numbers and shapes and colors even though it was still the same object, but just looking at different parts of it. If it didn't move then it would just look like a very strange looking 3 dimensional object.
So then to us a 4 dimensional being would look like a changing number of spheres that could change shapes and change into different amounts of spheres. The sphere would then be the 3 dimensional cross section of a 4 dimensional object. But if the object wasn't perfectly round it would just look like a strange metamorphic blob changing in numbers and shapes and colors even though it was still the same object, but just looking at different parts of it. If it didn't move then it would just look like a very strange looking 3 dimensional object.
The thing is Prof.Layman we don't see any of these beings
So what does this suggest?
That you think I beleive in higher dimensional beings? I think it suggest that our plane of existance doesn't actually intersect with a higher dimensional existance so that we can see it in that way. It would take two universes of different number of dimensions passing through each other, so then I guess we could know there is not a higher dimensional universe moving through this one near us at this particlar location.
It is a mute point because nobody has ever claimed to observe such a phenomena. However, lots of people have observed flying saucers, alien entities and ghosts. It is more reasonable to try to extrapolate from these kinds of observed phenomena to some kind of higher geometry that could accomidate it.
Either that, or just stick your fingers in your ears and yell, "No! No! No! It's not possible!", which is pretty much what the physics community has been doing for years.
Either that, or just stick your fingers in your ears and yell, "No! No! No! It's not possible!", which is pretty much what the physics community has been doing for years.
Nope. Mainstream science has there ears unplugged, their eyes wide open and their minds engaged. There is only one conclusion to draw when there is NO evidence of these ETs, which is disbelief until the evidence is there. It doesn't help when that some of the supporters claim such absurdites as telepathic communications, which is the same sort of claim that you can hear at a mental institution.
Actually there are people who claim just that. So the point is neither "mute" nor moot. Here is but one example:
http://www.psychic-experiences.com/real-psychic-story.php?story=1022
(note that I was just pointing out that no matter what the subject or how improbable, somebody somewhere will have claimed to have seen it. Leprechauns, chupacabras, sasquatch, loch ness monster, etc)
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Aww come on! Be a sport. A little woo never hurt anybody. Is wonder and awe taboo in the field of science?
This thread can continue just as well elsewhere. The only reason to keep it in the Physics & Math forum would be to lend all this wild speculation credence by association. But intellectual dishonesty is never sporting.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
I've yet to encounter a thread here that DOESN'T involve speculation. It's not about credence. It's about having fun. Do you ever let yourself speculate?