Four Demensional Objects

Originally Posted by benhelmuth

But seriously though has the passage of time ever been proven? If you want to say memories are proof. How do you know your memories are real? You may say you remember them but can you prove to me that you really have done it? Maybe it never really happened. My point is you cannot prove the past exists. So if the past does not exist how do we know time exists?

I'm still confused about the whole fourth dimension but, what have you been smoking? I think you watched too many movies.

So your saying that the movement of the planets around the sun, going from day to night. Animals and plants growing, being born and dying. Movement of objects, everything is measured in time. Proof? Look around you. Here's an example though:

A ball rolls down a 100m long slope, it takes the ball 100 seconds to roll down the entire slope. so it travels 1m/s. So that takes time, so time excists. Or how would you call that?

Exactly, we know time exists because we can measure it.

But the measurements of time that we have only exist because we have defined them. We had no idea time existed until we started measuring the movement of the sun and saying that was time. If you have ever stayed up between two days what defines one from the other? Midnight how can such an igsignificant event define our daily schedules? And to the allusion that i have been smoking something I have never ever smoked anything that was illegal and never plan to do so. As you can see my brain is already messed up in the first place.

The measurements of time exist because we defined them, yes, but time itself always existed. We could not have come up with the idea that we could measure the movement of the sun, if we did not already know time existed. A friend of mine died a long time ago. I know time exists because if there was no past, he would still be alive. But he isn't, because time has passed.

Originally Posted by benhelmuth

But the measurements of time that we have only exist because we have defined them.

True. But time itself does exist.

We had no idea time existed until we started measuring the movement of the sun and saying that was time.

Not true. Humans can distinguish the past from the present, and can foresee the consequences of their decisions in the future (to a limited extent, anyways.) We could do that before we built sundials. All of that requires that time exist.

If you have ever stayed up between two days what defines one from the other? Midnight how can such an igsignificant event define our daily schedules?

That has to do with the "rhythm", if you will, of the human body. We sleep at night, and are active during the day. So why wouldn't we keep that in mind when creating measurements of time?

This argument is akin to saying that distance doesn't exist because why, then, would we use meters (or feet, or whatever) to measure it? As you can see, it shows nothing at all.

well i know this is stupid but you know those things you go in that look like the front of a trai and it simulates you on a rollercoaster and whatnot... in scotland theres a "4-D" one at the Xscape center which claims the fouth dimention is heat.
4-D films (much the same^) is 3-D with a physical effect.
A 4-D film (or 4D) is an entertainment presentation system that combines a 3-D film with physical effects that occur in synchronization with the film. Since the physical effects are expensive to setup, 4-D films are currently only found at special venues, usually in amusement parks.

Some of the effects currently simulated in 4-D films include rain, wind, and vibration. The use of water sprays and air jets are common also. A 4-D film is not shown in a motion simulator, although some seats in 4-D venues vibrate or may move a few inches during the presentation.

Source= Wikipedia.
The sceintific 4th dimention is, as Zeddicus said, time

There are three conventional spatial dimensions: length (or depth), width, and height, often expressed as x, y and z. x and y axes appear on a plane Cartesian graph and z is found in functions such as a "z-buffer" in computer graphics, for processing "depth" in imagery. The fourth dimension is often identified with time, and as such is used to explain space-time in Einstein's theories of special relativity and general relativity. When a reference is used to four-dimensional co-ordinates, it is likely that what is referred to is the three spatial dimensions plus a time-line. If four (or more) spatial dimensions are referred to, this should be stated at the outset, to avoid confusion with the more common notion that time is the Einsteinian fourth dimension.

Source= Wikipedia

I know its a bit to far and over... erm.... geeky but....... Thoughts?

The problems people have with time is that we can't see it. With 3D we can actually see it, and interact with it. With 4D, humans cannot actually 'interact' with time, we have only knowledge of it passing us. We cannot even see it so to speak, we can only see the consequences of time. But it does exist. The consequences are there to see. For 3D, we can interact with it, and see the consequence, so it is easy to believe. If we throw a ball, the consequence is that it moves.
Interaction: throwing.
Consequence: moving.
We cannot move through time, we cannot interact with time. But we can observe the effects of time.
Interaction: None from humans.
Consequence: Objects changing.
This is why we have to create artifical ways to see the fourth dimension; ways in the form of measurements.

Originally Posted by Lysis

Dimensions are just ideas, really. "Time" isn't actually a dimension in the traditional geometrical sense, as the only three dimensions geometrically are "length" "height" and "width." Time is also just an idea, a measurement, rather than something physical. Time is measured by the Earth's movement around the Sun (or the movement of other celestial bodies, such as the Moon or stars), so Time is just a measurement of movement. Thus, it shouldn't be possible to "travel" time, as it's not a physical material, it's simply a measurement. Everything exists in Time, just as everything is in movement. Also, everything has three (or four, if Time counts) dimensions. Nothing can exist in one or two dimensions.

I'm pretty sure most of that is right.

Dimensions are just ideas, very much the same way that numbers, and math, and algebra are just ideas. There are an infinite number of dimensions in the world. For example, if an object has a price or a color, these are each two separate dimensions. An object's weight is another dimension, as well as its buoyancy. Each of these are, although synthetic ideas, still based upon a scientific observation. It's more the measuring system part of a dimension which defines it as synthetic, as there is no 'natural' way to measure.

For an example, Let's take a simple algebraic equation:

2+2=a

Now obviously we know that 'a' is the value '4', but what if we change the values defining the dimension, or variable, 'a'?

3+3=a

This changes the value of 'a' completely! Now 'a' is equal to '6'! Going back to my first example, even more interesting, what happens when I change the value of the number '2' to equal what we would think of as '2.5' in the decimal system?

2+2=a

Now remember, '2' actually equals what '2.5' would normally equal, so the value 'a' is actually equal to '5'! Yes, 2+2=5!

This change in the way we measure mathematical values is called a base change. Base changes can be very important to certain fields, for example computer science. Base10, the base we use (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) can be inefficient and messy for handling boolean (yes or no) values. The simplest answer to this is to adjust the number system to have a 2 value base, one value for 'yes', and one value for 'no'. Lets do so right now.

we can use the numbers we already have and get rid of a few.

0 = No
1 = Yes

Now remember, these still represent mathimatical values. the more 1's in a number, the larger it is, and any number in this counting system can be converted back into Base10. For example:

base2-10 = base10-2

When applying this to the real world, if I see a small parking lot with 2 cars parked in the lot, I can say "There are 2 cars parked in that lot." if I am counting in base10, and "There are 10 cars parked in that lot" if I am counting in base2. This changes the entire way we measure mathematics.

If you didn't understand that all, it's fine, I'm tired right now, and I'm probably just rambling. If you want to understand this better look for a tutorial on mathimatical base shifting.



Assuming you're more interested in spacial dimensions, there are obviously the three spacial dimensions, however it's inconclusive whether the dimension 'time' has any properties that set it apart from the three obvious spacial dimensions, or if we just observe it differently then we observe hight, length, and width.

Going back to math, we can create a geometric object with an infinite number of spacial dimensions. For example, as we speak an object which exists in several hundred spacial dimensions is being mapped by mathematicians. Again, this object is an 'idea' and only exists, as far as we know, mathematically.


However, this all being said, every object has a physical quantity, weight, mass, buoyancy, length, width, hight, etc... so it's not so much that dimensions are only ideas, but the way we measure and conceptualize them are.

Originally Posted by benhelmuth

But the measurements of time that we have only exist because we have defined them. We had no idea time existed until we started measuring the movement of the sun and saying that was time. If you have ever stayed up between two days what defines one from the other? Midnight how can such an igsignificant event define our daily schedules? And to the allusion that i have been smoking something I have never ever smoked anything that was illegal and never plan to do so. As you can see my brain is already messed up in the first place.

This argument could be applied to any dimension. How do you know objects have weight? Sure, you can measure them, but how do you know what you're measuring exists? Hell, how do you know you exist?

The simple answer is that we don't. We don't actually have definitive proof of anything. However, the fact that we have a system for measuring these properties supports a consistency.

For example, if I flip a coin 500 times, and every time it lands on heads I would be inclined to believe that this coin is double headed. However, the possibility that this coin is a fair coin still exists, and if it is a fair coin I still have about a 50/50 chance of getting either side the next time I flip this coin.

Of course, at this point I would probably pick up the coin, check both of its sides, and realize I just wasted a lot of time flipping a coin 500 times.