25 replies to this topic

[Fabbrizio]

Okay, this is a little out of line, but if there were to be a fourth spacial dimension as you suggest, wouldn't we be able to tell of it's properties? I mean, we live in a three dimensional world, but we see in two dimensions. But because of our vision with light, we can determine that objects are behind, ahead, above, below, to the left, or to the right of an other object. If there were to be a fourth spacial dimension, we would be able to prove it by viewing a black hole, which is essential a fourth dimension like object, as for us, light can't pass through it. Maybe light can pass through per say, but since it is traveling through a dimension we don't live in, a fourth dimension, our eyes and brain try to find a meaning for this strange occurrence, and make it appear as refracted light. I don't know if this is true, but it seems accurate. I think there is a fourth spacial dimension. 

 

It doesn't sound like you really understand what a black hole is. Light can't pass through it for the same reason light can't pass through planet earth - it is solid mass. A black hole isn't an actual hole, and I really want to find the hollywood producer who spreads this pseudoscience, so I can give him a piece of my mind.

I like that you're advocating for a 4th dimension but you're doing so for all the wrong reasons.

[Timelord]

Indeed, you probably missed the lectures on what a singularity is, and what its effects are on the surrounding space-time environment: We can observe time, both in a matter of perspective, and using scientific calculations to judge the effects of it on any subject. The space-bending phenomenon as part of general relativity has been observed and documented.

I suggest reading about relativity and quantum mechanics before making a blanket statement regarding how to observe time as a physical force and possible spacial dimension.

In the simplest terms, the singularity effect is a force of hypergravity; light is pulled into the absolute event horizon, and absorbed by the mass within. This alone leads me to believe that light must have some mass (else, why is it attracted to objects of relatively high mass), and when it encounters such a mass as a singularity possesses, it is accelerated towards that mass as an attracting force.

At the event horizon, we are still able to perceive it, partly due to the time distortion ratio between our own relative reference and that nearing the singularity, and after that it is accelerated beyond our scope to see it as photons in the visual spectrum.

This could be partly due to doppler shift, or it could be that the hypergravity affects the spin of the photon and converts it into other particles, breaking it down at the subatomic level, or transmuting it by affecting its spin, to collide with the mass of the singularity and then add to that mass. It would take extremely-long-term observation (millions of years) to calculate the overall outcome of photon collision with a singularity mass such as a quasar.

The effect is in essence, the absolute opposite of the photonic release in a fission explosion.

One main reason that much of the mass of the galaxy isn't also pulled into that mass is because of its rotation and the spin of the bodies in motion, which act to balance the gravitic tidal forces at work.

In any event, a 'black hole' is not a 'hole' to anywhere. It is a mass of supercompressed particles that has no visual reference, as the light that enters it cannot escape, and thus cannot be observed; visible light must be reflected or refracted off or through a body, and when pulled into a mass with no way to escape, cannot then be reflected back out to be 'seen'.

That is why you cannot see the singularity itself, only the event horizon of the singularity, and of course measure both the gravitic and temporal distortions that it generates with its mass on space-time: We measure its effects on local subjects.

A singularity is an object of one of the following, depending o your purview: A point of no dimension, a point of one-dimension, a point of standard dimension at minimal Planck length in all directions.

One of my own theories revolves around the concept that all forms of matter and energy are essentilly identical, their quanta values signifying their relative position in fourth (and possibly fifth dimensional) space, with a photon being the most distant in the fourth diensional axis, followed by other quanta. The nearer to other states of quanta any one quanta is in the fourth dimension, the more its attractive force, first forming atoms, and then forming compounds.

This ties in with out observations that more massive matter slows down time, as it is extending t the closest portion of that dimension, and thus is perceived as being slower. While there are flaws in this model as well, I believe it may hold some merit, and I have used it as a model for some of my science-fiction literature.

Edited by ZoriaRPG, 16 October 2013 - 02:25 AM.

[Shane]

I haven't looked a the OP or posts, but I know for fact that I know this is a thread about what is 4D. From what I gathered, here are my thoughts and put them in a tl;dr format.

 

1D can be defined as a simple line that is based only on width. 2D is made up of stacks of lines to make length. However, if we were 2D we could only see from a 1D perspective. 3D expands 2D with height. We can see objects from a 2D perspective. So what is 4D? What does it expand? And what does 3D in full glory look like? I believe it's not time based myself.

 

I think there are theories and visual interpretations on what 4D looks like. But we haven't actually seen what it actually is, but supposedly it would be made up of 3D objects.

Edited by Shane, 16 October 2013 - 02:41 AM.

[strike]

Sorry, I shouldn't have been so vague about the black hole stuff. What I was asking is how do you think that photons get trapped in black holes since they most likely don't have any mass? We can't know for sure if protons are massless or not but by various experiments we have set a limit on how much they could weigh, and the limit is so, so, so, so, so small, even for quantum objects, that most sceintists assume they have no mass. In fact I'm pretty sure the limit has been set low enough that the effects we observe between the radii of black holes and photons could not be explained by normal attraction of gravity. Sceintists attribute the trapping of light in black holes to a strong curvature in space time, not gravity (well partially gravity). So how would you explain this?

-Strike

[Fabbrizio]

Sorry, I shouldn't have been so vague about the black hole stuff. What I was asking is how do you think that photons get trapped in black holes since they most likely don't have any mass? We can't know for sure if protons are massless or not but by various experiments we have set a limit on how much they could weigh, and the limit is so, so, so, so, so small, even for quantum objects, that most sceintists assume they have no mass. In fact I'm pretty sure the limit has been set low enough that the effects we observe between the radii of black holes and photons could not be explained by normal attraction of gravity. Sceintists attribute the trapping of light in black holes to a strong curvature in space time, not gravity (well partially gravity). So how would you explain this?

-Strike

 

They're assumed to have no mass for practical purposes, but it stands to reason that all elementary particles would have some mass, even if only the slightest bit (if they had no mass, it would follow that they would travel at infinite speed, which we know they do not). Also consider that the warping of space time is caused by the gravitational field of a body (the rotational cycles of planets around stars, and moons around planets, is part of the gravitational field warping space time to fit the larger body - objects traveling on a vector will lose their course and begin traveling in a circle when they enter the warped space-time of a gravitational field, treating the circular field as if it was no different from their original vector). It essentially all comes down to gravity. Just, different applications of it.

Edited by Fabbrizio, 16 October 2013 - 07:37 AM.

[JetBox]

It doesn't sound like you really understand what a black hole is. Light can't pass through it for the same reason light can't pass through planet earth - it is solid mass. A black hole isn't an actual hole, and I really want to find the hollywood producer who spreads this pseudoscience, so I can give him a piece of my mind.

I like that you're advocating for a 4th dimension but you're doing so for all the wrong reasons.

Ya, I watched this science thing on tv. I guess this guy was wrong. Now I feel stupid.

Edited by jetbox, 16 October 2013 - 12:17 PM.

[Timelord]

Now we're getting into the murky subject of: What generates mass?

I have a strong feeling that the tidal forces that we can observe negating mass on a large scale, such as the rotation of orbiting bodies, are a macro-scale model of what generates mass on the micro-scale level.

If we attribute the volume of mass to the ratio of spin in each quanta, then some things begin to make sense. Otherwise, we must assume that there is another kind of quanta that us directly responsible for mass (e.g. a graviton), and there is the same level of substantiation for gravitons as there is for chronons and tachyons; all three are theoretical particles.

As to whether something with no mass would move at infinite speed, I find no evidence to support this conclusion. Spacial expansion is the only movement that exceeds C, but it is not infinite, and if something moved at infinite speed, it would exceed the spacial expansion factor, and in the act, exit our Universe, or must operate on another level of physics, such as the extensions to special relativity allow.

(On that note, you also have to consider whether space is an expanding dimension-set of its own, or if it is expanding inside another dimensional plane beyond our scope of vision.)

On the other hand, such an object is still possible, although not something we could observe, as it would not change space; it not bend, reflect or refract light; and by the time we could observe it directly, its position would be out of view.

[Avaro]

I believe there is no more than 3 dimensions.

[Fabbrizio]

As to whether something with no mass would move at infinite speed, I find no evidence to support this conclusion. Spacial expansion is the only movement that exceeds C, but it is not infinite, and if something moved at infinite speed, it would exceed the spacial expansion factor, and in the act, exit our Universe, or must operate on another level of physics, such as the extensions to special relativity allow.

 

Okay, I'm reading up on photon momentum and it's really kind of blowing my mind. I had been running on the idea of gravity's effects being enacted on the photon's momentum, and that because the photon has momentum, it must not only have velocity but also mass. But the math behind a photon's momentum is some crazy stuff, I'll have to re-think a few things.

Edited by Fabbrizio, 16 October 2013 - 03:06 PM.

[Timelord]

That is assuming that those calculations are correct, and not based on a false premise...

Sadly, there is no real single answer to cover all the governing physics that we observe in photonic particles. If you base a model on a mathematical premise that is unfounded, then the model will also be false, whereas if you concentrate on observed properties and interactions, your model may be made to fit multiple forms of calculations on the same particle.

(I'm not entirely contented with point-based models, as they have their own flaws.)

Assuming that photons observe all of the laws of thermodynamics, you could consider that they have no mass, or that something intrinsic to them is negating their mass (counter-mass). In either case, they behave as if they have no mass, so a model based on this can be adapted to fit future facts.

[peteandwally]

Hey Dudes, you guys are kind of discussing several different things in this thread. Here's my two cents:

You are describing a vector space when considering up to 3 dimensions, and I guess the 4th. Any point in a vector space can be described by what are called basis vectors. In cartesian space, you have length, width and height. However, that same vector space can be described in polar coordinates like radius, angle and tilt, which work the same way to give you directions and distance from an origin point the the point of interest. So, the same vector space is comprised of either 3 lengths (from infinity to -infinity) OR by one positive length (0 to infinity), an angle (0 to 2*pi radians) and a half angled tilt (0 to pi radians). In this framework, you can define several 'dimensions', but the practical world will fall as a projection of those onto the basis vectors.

 

Once you begin to consider things like weight, or temperature, you begin to describe the world as a manifold. manifolds are a different kind of space that encompass what we would consider to be 'measurements'. The 3-Dimensional cartesian space we are familiar with is referred to as a Riemannian manifold, but there are others that do not need to include spatial dimensions. It's a foggy concept, but very useful to generally describe things like rotations, translation and rigid expansions or contractions of shapes within images (in computer vision). Let's say you wanted to recognize a human in a surveillance camera feed. You'd look for two arms and legs and a head regardless of where they entered the scene or what configuration they where in (sitting, standing, cartwheels). In that case, the relative lengths and positions of their features are more important than how large they appear or where they are standing, so in a manifold a standing person of any size in any location would only take up a single point, and then their posture would move them around the manifold space. Paths on a manifold are called geodesics and any arbitrary nuisance parameters like location and rotation are encompassed in what are called Lie groups, that do not significant;y affect the manifold position.

 

Uh, anyway, in thermodynamics, we revert back away from more mathematical considerations and only take a look at phase space. Position in phase space is a reflection of the configuration and momentum of atoms in your system. Any forces and such that change the system will move it to a new point in phase space. This is most useful to describe large amounts of particles with regular behavior and luckily one of the laws in the universe tends to influences sytems to approach low energy/high entropy equilibrium states (otherwise nothing would become stable at a macro scale).

 

So, I'm not really arguing anything here, but hopefully this can help clarify the different aspects of this thread's discussion. Some of you are talking in math-speak, others in geometrical terms and others in thermo. Yes, they are related, but they are also difficult to translate. The black hole tangent is a whole other story though, which I won't begin to scratch right now.