Rotwang Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 Does time really considered a dimension? Kinda. Time plays several different roles in modern physics, and it's not yet entirely clear how those different concepts of time relate to one another. General Relativity (GR) says that the universe is a four-dimensional "manifold" (a kind of mathematical structure that generalises flat space) and that time is one of those dimensions; in fact there's no unique way to separate the different directions in spacetime into time and space, much like there's no unique way to separate the two dimensions on a map into left/right and forwards/backwards (it depends on which way you're facing). By itself, though, GR doesn't explain why we perceive time as something that passes. In fact the equations of GR stay the same if the direction of time is reversed, and so do those of our current best theory of particle physics (almost). There are some properties of the particular universe we live in that, unlike the underlying laws of physics that that universe seems to obey, do give rise to an "arrow of time"; there's the second law of thermodynamics, for example, which roughly says that systems without outside influence become more chaotic over time (a special case of this is the fact that if you put a hot object and a cold object in contact then heat will flow from the hot one to the cold one, rather than the other way around). It's plausible that this explains why our brains think of the past and the future differently, but I don't know whether this theory has been confirmed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JISNEGRO Posted September 23, 2013 Share Posted September 23, 2013 Thanks Rotwang! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veracohr Posted September 24, 2013 Author Share Posted September 24, 2013 Does that help? As an abstract, something to just think about, I have no problem conceptualizing more dimensions. I have a problem visually seeing such an image and reconciling it with my mental notion of a 4 dimensional object. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JISNEGRO Posted September 24, 2013 Share Posted September 24, 2013 It might be because the images are ambiguous and the brain is not capable of discern how to interpret the image. But if more clues are given to the brain then it becomes easy to see the cube. Ambiguous image, one can not determine which side is at the front and which at the back. Both views are correct Your brain have extra clues to interpret the image Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JISNEGRO Posted September 24, 2013 Share Posted September 24, 2013 And this is the tesseract (4D cube) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.