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Other Dimensions?

thaiboxerken

Penultimate Amazing
thaiboxerken
Joined
Sep 17, 2001
Messages
34,570
dimension: an independent axis or direction in space or spacetime. The familiar space around us has three dimensions (left-right, back-forth, up-down) and the familiar spacetime has four (the previous three axes plus the past-future axis). Superstring theory requires the universe to have additional spatial dimensions.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/glossary.html

Now, I've been arguing with bleevers at CTV again and they claim that new superstring theory requires other dimensions and that is where spirits could be residing. This is absolutely absurd, given the definition of "dimension" in a scientific context. I wonder when the word dimension became synonymous with "alternative universe" in pop culture.
 
thaiboxerken said:
dimension: an independent axis or direction in space or spacetime. The familiar space around us has three dimensions (left-right, back-forth, up-down) and the familiar spacetime has four (the previous three axes plus the past-future axis). Superstring theory requires the universe to have additional spatial dimensions.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/glossary.html

Now, I've been arguing with bleevers at CTV again and they claim that new superstring theory requires other dimensions and that is where spirits could be residing. This is absolutely absurd, given the definition of "dimension" in a scientific context. I wonder when the word dimension became synonymous with "alternative universe" in pop culture.
Click to expand...

I thought dimensions outside of the four we can perceive were mathematical constructs used to describe force interaction in physics.

Of course the Fifth Dimension was a musical group.
 
The problem here is the crap people have been shown in lame Sci-Fi shows and bad novels.

People have the concept of a 'dimension' as a whole other 'place'. We have seen bad writers use the word 'other dimension' as the place where there is a whole other 'place' with its own 3-D space and time.

Scientific/Mathematic evidence for other 'dimensions' are NOT 'parallel universes'.
 
I thought there were supposed to be a total of 11 dimensions, and most are extremely small.
 
c4ts said:
I thought there were supposed to be a total of 11 dimensions, and most are extremely small.
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Small enough for little green men?

I think also people have analogies in their head as to what more than 3 or 4 dimensions would look like, and people generally ascribe their own analogies more explanatory power than the original theories they don't understand.

One analogy I've seen in use is that of our superiority over two dimensional people (no, I don't mean Sylvia Brown). Imagine a two-dimensional person, a drawing but which is alive. His world is in two dimensions, and by touching the paper I can put myself into his world, and he could perceive me, or the part of me which is in contact with his flat world. But my world is three-dimensional, and so I can see him from my 3rd dimensional vantage point without him being able to perceive me at all, though he might spot my shadow, or feel my breath, or something.

So why can't a 5- or 11-dimensional being do that to me? Goes the analogy.
 
thaiboxerken said:

Now, I've been arguing with bleevers at CTV again and they claim that new superstring theory requires other dimensions and that is where spirits could be residing. This is absolutely absurd, given the definition of "dimension" in a scientific context. I wonder when the word dimension became synonymous with "alternative universe" in pop culture.
Click to expand...

Perhaps these extra dimensions can be bombarded with quantum tachyon particles that will allow us to communicate with the spirits...

Quantum!
 
Perhaps these extra dimensions can be bombarded with quantum tachyon particles that will allow us to communicate with the spirits...
Click to expand...

Don't give the Sci-Fi channel another topic for an original movie!
 
Calabi-Yao, but who would care ... ;)

[eta] Oops .. your spelling seems to be used too.
 
hammegk said:
Calabi-Yao, but who would care ... ;)

[eta] Oops .. your spelling seems to be used too.
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People who find nonvanishing harmonic spinors in their equations, that's who.
 
Nucular said:

...

One analogy I've seen in use is that of our superiority over two dimensional people (no, I don't mean Sylvia Brown). Imagine a two-dimensional person, a drawing but which is alive. His world is in two dimensions, and by touching the paper I can put myself into his world, and he could perceive me, or the part of me which is in contact with his flat world.

...
Click to expand...

Carl Sagan demonstrated as much in one of his Cosmos series episodes, with paper cutouts of two dimensional people. My eight year old was bewildered (not sure how much of it he understood).
 
SFB said:
Carl Sagan demonstrated as much in one of his Cosmos series episodes, with paper cutouts of two dimensional people. My eight year old was bewildered (not sure how much of it he understood).
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Interesting. Did Sagan use it to illustrate what other dimensions actually might be like? Or was he arguing that it was a faulty analogy?
 
Nucular said:
Interesting. Did Sagan use it to illustrate what other dimensions actually might be like? Or was he arguing that it was a faulty analogy?
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He was trying to explain what it would be like for people living within two dimensions to perceive their surroundings while a person within three dimensions interferred with them. In that way he was trying to explain how they would be perceived from either point of view. The cut-outs were flat pieces of paper on a table, representing people. The upshot of the explanation was that their perception was extremely limited (as ours may be within three dimensions), especially considering how extremely difficult it would be for a two dimensioned person to explain a three dimensioned world, or us any dimensions beyond our's.
 
c4ts said:
People who find nonvanishing harmonic spinors in their equations, that's who.
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Witten I suppose? Greene maybe?

How many people would be in that category; dozens, hundreds, thousands, more?
 
Nucular said:
Interesting. Did Sagan use it to illustrate what other dimensions actually might be like? Or was he arguing that it was a faulty analogy?
Click to expand...

Further, google "sagan flatlanders".
 
The hijacking of extra dimensions for the woo-woo element predates superstring theory by quite a bit. It's been at least ten years since I've read the book Hyperspace by Michio Kaku, but what I recall is that the concept of possible extra dimensions to our physical world was thought of more than 100 years ago, and the mathematics that was developed actually helped Einstein figure out his relativity theories.

The woo-woos have been using the concept of spirits living in other dimensions since then.
 
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