Here are some thoughts I had recently about the fourth spacial dimension: It would be possible to make a fairly accurate depiction of a four-dimensional object or "landscape" that would exist as a three-dimensional object, just as we can depict our three-dimensional world on canvas or photographic paper, for all intents and purposes a two-dimensional surface. Let's call this object a hyperpainting. Assuming that it would make any sense to us at all, if we could see a hyperpainting, it would look like a three-dimensional sculpture to us, but to a hyperbeing, it would look "flat." The hyperbeing could see all parts of it at once, but we could only see parts of it. However, a "hypersculpture" - which we could see only in cross-section - would present the same complexities of viewing (different appearances from different vantage points, more realistic appearance) to a hyperbeing as our scuptures do to us. Also, although we can try to imagine and depict on paper how a hypercube or other three-dimensional object would look, we cannot be very successful. Just imagine how it would be if hypobodies (two-dimensional creatures, "hypo" is the opposite of "hyper") tried to portray the third dimension in their pictures. A picture in the second dimension is a line, just as in the third dimension it is a plane. Imagine trying to portray the third dimension on a one-dimensional surface. It's the same as trying to portray the fourth dimension on a two-dimensional surface.

Good morning, Eric; A thought for your EMail page:
May 23, 1998, I submitted a rather interesting, albeit inconclusive, hypothesis regarding the Milky Way galaxy traveling faster than the speed of light, relative to another galactic pod. It occurs to me now that this is presupposing that the blast from the initial Big Bang would exceed the velocity of light. I don’t think that has ever been determined. This being the case, is there anywhere any other example of something traveling faster than light? Happily, yes! The black-hole effect reportedly has a phenomena called the event-horizon. What this deals with is the region wherein the speed of light is attained and escape from the black-hole becomes a theoretical impossibility. Now I want you to bear in mind that the black-hole had at one time a much smaller gravitational pull and was much less condensed. This implies a body with a solid surface—something tangible. As this is the case, does this mean that the event horizon occurs at the physical surface of the black-hole, or somewhere above the surface? Even if the event- horizon occurred one millimeter above the actual surface of the black-hole, this means that objects falling into it would continue to accelerate—even beyond the event-horizon—even beyond the speed of light.

I have a thought regarding future topics. I understand the want to keep this a primarily 4-D site, but you’ve been touching on quite a number of fields. What if we were to explore some of these? We could see about terreformation of Mars. Do a SETI topic and discuss just how an extraterrestrial civilization would respond to different signals, or if they would respond at all. What about the re-terreformation of Earth? What about social indifference? It’ll be another ten tears before we know anything about it, but we could even theorize on what new discoveries the Cassini probe will dig up on its extended visit with Saturn and her many moons. If you choose nothing from the above, it’s completely understood, but maybe I’ve planted a few germs you could build upon. This is still a great site and I do visit it almost daily. Keep up the great work.

Email Eric if you want to comment on these ideas.

ok so this thing called infinity is really big, right? so why do most people think of it as being so big? i mean there are things smaller than the atom; protons, neutrons, and electrons; quarks, leptons, etc., you keep splitting the small things into smaller things and they can be split up into infinitly smaller pieces. so infinity is big and small. and if a point is supposedly nondimensional, and it IS small then who are we to say that they aren't dimensions at all? could they not be infinitly small universes that make up everything? well all that made sense in my head, and i have been up for almost 27 hours straight anyway... Reid Barnett

The Big Bang set everything in the universe into a constant velocity. It is wrong to measure the speed of any star as ?mph because we only know the speed of an ojbect relative to the earth. Initially all matter was moving many times the speed of light. What if this constant speed is time? What if this speed is what causes the universe to age? What if time is only slowed when we travel against the progress of this infinate expansion of space and time? My theory is that time is nothing more than a perspective in relation to an event. In other words time is a distance where one second is a radial measurement of c (distance).

curiously, Trainofsf

P.S. I am new to this relativity stuff. I am still in High School and I haven't studied it in school. This is a hobby of sorts. I suspect that my theory has many faults so please e-mail me back and feel free to point them out.

There have been many nights where I just lay in bed pondering the
possibilities of a higher dimension, and I FINALly found someone else who
is on the same page as I am.
I am facinated by 'things that the human brain (or a 3d object?) cannot
comprehend.'*  For example, we humans cannot conceive of something with an
infinate quantity.  We know that it goes on forever, but do not understand
how.  Chaos is another example, the spot on Jupiter... its there, but we
don't know how.  I guess you see my point.  What I am getting at is we
cannot comprehend a 4d object, and here is why.
First of all, I understand Derrick Coetzee's explanation of a 4d object
passing through a 3d object; we would only see 3d of it, and then it would
APPEAR to DISAPPEAR!  But why would it just pass through?  There has to be
an explanation.
Here's mine...
I believe that in the fourth dimension, time is three dimensional.  In the
third dimension, we exist in time which travels upon a plane.  Many people
make time analogies through 2d representation (eg.  "time travels on a
strait line")...  WRONG!!!  Time travels upon a plane.  I exist in the same
time as E.T. who is millions of light years away.  

Thus I am here ->*-------------------------------------* <- and E.T. is here

But we are both  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ existing in the
same direction.  
So, if time in the fourth dimension was 3d, then it would travel in all
directions, just as space does to us.  So in order for a 4d object to pass
through my back yard, it would have to come from a 'negative z coordinate'
in time through my 'time coordinate' on an x/y plane.

This is a little math joke that is interesting and makes me laugh
I will prove algebraically that 1 = 2:

1)   a = b                              first multiply each side by a
2)   a^2 = ab                        now subtract b^2 from each side
3)   a^2 - b^2 = ab - b^2     both sides can be factored
4)   (a-b)(a+b) = b(a-b)        (a-b)'s cancel each other
5)   (a+b) = b                       replace a with b since they're
equal
6)   b + b = b                       gather like terms
7)   2b = b                           divide thru by b
8)   2 = 1                             TADA!!!!

Of course this is invalid because in step 4 you divide by zero, which
isn't allowed.
ENJOY!  :)

                                                                Your
site's new fan,

Anonymous

The fourth dimension is simply a dimension from where everything we see, touch, smell, hear and taste comes from. In other words, the third dimension is a manifestation of the fourth dimension; the fourth dimension is an incubator. A certain amount space is needed for a manifestation of an incubating period to take place. Take for example the creation of the universe and its contents. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God created the light, the firmament, the Earth, plants, the animals, etc. When examining what the bible says about how they came to be one will discover that the fourth dimension is simply made up of light and sound.
In Genesis 1:3 one will find that then God said: "Let there be light"; and there was light. A close look at the latter will reveal that a sound had to be made because He(God) said: "Let there be light". Of course, this sound does not have to be a speakable sound. In recent studies, scientists have discovered that in the middle of the tinniest particles there exist sound waves that keeps the particles together; sound keeps them from falling apart. HMMM?! That's very interesting!!! Interesting because we know that there was some type of sound made before the existance of our universe. Not only do we have the Bible telling us that there was sound made but we also have scientific proof that sound waves is part of the existance of particles.
Now, for the "...light..." part of "let there be light". There recently was an experiment with a light laser that used as much power needed to power the whole USA. When this laser was fired at an area no larger than the period at the end of this sentece, guess what? There had been a production of solid matter no larger than the period at the end of this sentence.
What do all these scientific proof tells us? First, that the there is a God. Science has made this clear; it takes care of "see it to believe it". Second, that the fourth dimension is made up of space. And, that in order to manifest that fourth dimension all we need is light and sound, respectively. Time is of no relevancy to manifest the fourth dimension. God has His own mysterious way of dealing with time. But, three things are evident: space is needed to manifest what has been spoken, light to bring into being and sound to keep in place.
Where is this fourth dimension? First, if one studies the first chapter of the Bible one will find that throughout The Creation God said "let there be..." in every instance before something came into existance. Even in the creation of the dinosaur that is evident. In Genesis 1:20-21 one will find the following: then God said, "Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth...", so God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded and every winged bird.... If I recall correctly what I have learned from scientific proof, I know that sea dinosaurs was first in existance and then the giant birds. Once again, we see that it was some type of sound made because God said: "let the waters abound...".
Second, in Genesis 1:26 we find that we have been made in the image and likeness of God. If this is true(we have seen that the existance of the universe we live in has been told by the bible and proven by science) then we have the same power to bring into existance. So, where is the fourth dimension? The fourth dimension is within us. It is by being incorrectly taught that we do not know this fact. If we came into being by God's confession and if we have been made in His image then logical and common sense deduction would tell us that the fourth dimension exists within us. Remember, God is bigger than the universe yet He exists in our hearts. Spiritualist,buddhists, witches, among others have used this knowledge so why millions of people don't know that the fourth dimension exists with themselves. The spiritual(fourth) dimension has been chosen to be ignored. Not only ignored but have been taught incorrectly how to exist in their third dimensional bodies.
There 3 of us: body, soul, spirit. Body is the manifestation of The Word being spoken, soul is the bridge to our spirit and our spirit actually exists in the fourth dimension. Remember the third dimension has height, width, length and depth and fourth dimension is space manifested through light and sound. How we choose to acknowledge and use the laws of the fourth dimension rests on our shoulders. I do remind you that what you sow is what you reap.
How do one learn to see and used this fourth dimension correctly? I do not want you to see the following as religion but as a way to educate yourself on the fourth dimension; one can correctly see and learn how to use this fourth dimension by accepting Jesus Christ into our lives. Who else better than Him? For it was He multiplied fish and bread to feed thousands. It was He who walked over water. It was He who resurrected. If He knew how to miracelously multiply, defeat the law of gravity and defeat death then Jesus knows how to operate and operate within the fourth dimension. Knowing how to... is a knowledge that can only be attained through your subconscious, which happens to be your spirit and in which world(spiritual world) Jesus happens to coexist.

This is such an excellent site!
        Anyway, I found your site about a week or so ago and, as you
may have noticed, have been having quite a bit of fun in it.  I
must admit, though, I was reading over my entry for this week’s
topic (Are electricity and gravity related more than we think?)
and it looks like I may have been half asleep when I wrote it.
        A moot point, at best.
        I do have a thought for your EMail page, though.  I think I
may have already sent you a copy of this, but here goes.

        I drew this using New Courier typeset for equal spacing:

                               .
                    .          .          .
          .                    .                    .
                               .
             .        .        .        .        .
                               .
                .              .              .
    .                   .      w      x                   .
       .           .           .           y           .
          .                    .                    .
             .        .    .   .   .    .        z
                .              .              .
                   .     .     .     .     .
                      .      . . .      .
                         .  .  .  .  .
                            .  .  .
                               +

        It is assumed by many, though certainly not Hollywood, that
nothing can travel faster than light.  Well, my friend, at the
moment, I’m afraid that you and everyone you know have already
achieved this feat.  You see, speed is a relative state.  I
thought of this while I was looking at my hand and contemplating
the Big Bang theory.  Consider the above diagram.  Though crude, I
believe it will suffice.
        The plus sign (+) will determine the hub of our universe.
Taking the Big Bang theory into account, the galaxies of the
universe are being cast outward from this hub.  If you pick a dot
and draw an arc with the hub as its axis, you will have a
theoretical leading edge of our expanding universal sphere.
        Now, as this sphere expands, the distance between the
galaxies will increase at a steady rate.  If our galactic pod,
which includes the Milky Way, the Megalanics, Andromeda, etc, were
located at the "w" in the diagram, "x", "y", and "z" would
represent three other galactic pods.  Let’s say that pod "x", in
its trajectory from the hub, is traveling away from pod "w" (us)
at about half the speed of light, creating a huge red shift.  That
would put pod "y" at the speed of light, making it virtually
invisible to our current methods of perception.  Relative to pod
"z", we (still the "w" pod) would be traveling away from them at
one and a half times the speed of light.
        The speed of light is not a speed limit, merely a limit of
perception.

Dear fellow 4-d'ers: I'm afraid I must take back the statements I made previously about the inability of 2-d "Flatland" objects to intereact with one another. A few days back I was thinking along those lines after just having reread "Flatland." I asked my friends what they thought about the issue and they all seemed to agree that they couldn't see how two flatlanders could bump into each other if there was no edges to bump into. Satisfied with this concensus, I made this rather bold assertion in an email to the makers of this webpage. However..., yesterday I'm at a party where significant quantities of alcohol sre being consumed, and we start talking about physics and space-time and things, and my buddy Aaron, whom I'd spoken to earlier about the "flatland" problem, tells me that after consideration he concluded that two 2-d objects can collide. His reason for beleiving so is that two infinitessimal points cannot occupy the same infinitessimal location in space. I agree, so that means particles can interact, and collision betwwn 2-d objects, 2d eyesight and all that crap can exist in 2d space. So I apologize for jumping the gun with my conclusions, I suspected that I just wasn't thinking about it the right way.
Sincerely Too Preoccupied With Two Dimensions,

In the book Flatland, A. Square can see along the plane of his world, and sees a one dimensional line from which he infers two dimensions. But is this really possible? I don't think so. A. square has length and width but no height. In order for him to see, a photon must strike his eye along the plane of Flatland, but in order for two things to collide, there MUST be height. To illustrate: Consider two pennies on a flat table. We might imagine the pennies as being two dimensional objects, and you can send one penny sliding into the other and *SMACK*, right? No. When two pennies collide, it is their edges that contact one another, and their edges compose their third dimension, height. True 2-d objects have no (0) height, and thus have no edges which can interact with another. Likewise, a flatland photon cannot strike against an infinitessimal edge. It just won't work!! So, A. Squares ability to see and even touch other flatlanders is not really possible in true 2d space, and should be considered fantasy. I suppose that means that 2d objects just whiz thru each other, and there can't be any forces in a 2d universe without particle interaction, so..... that kindof makes me a bit sad, it ruins all the fun. Forget what I said. I don't want to be responsible for destroying the social structure and universal laws of Flatland. [:)]

Sincerely,

Anonymous

Say you have a three dimentional peice of paper and turn it into a mobius strip. Easy enough right. Now it's 2-D right? Obviously! It only has length and width, considering there's only one side. (This isn't in 1-D mind you cause there are 2 faces.) We've just moved a 3-D, 6 faced thing and made it into a 2-D 2 faced thing. This could also be theoreticly possable with a 2-D peice of paper, and turn it into a 1-D strip. How then, would you create a 4-D mobius strip in 3-D? AND.... (there's more) IF we could create a mobius strip of a 4-D object, when we broke the bond keeping it as a 3-D object, would it dissapear concidering we can not see 4 dimentions at once? Think about it.

-geca

I beleive that Language exists in 4-D also. All thoughts and their expressions have their direct opposite and this can be observed as "opposite meanings on the same level of organization". Paradox, ambiguity, puns, conumdrums are language elements encountered in 3-D and originating in 4-D.
Mobius Dick

Hi!I really don know where this piece of knowledge which has been bothering me should fit in your page but if you do put it up,tell me bout it OK?Well here goes : Wat is fastest thing we know of? All leading scientists say that the fastest thing is light.Light moves at the speed of 300,000 kilometres per second.But is it really true?I think not.I believe our minds is faster than light.Why do I say that.Example, it takes bout 9.5 minutes for the Sun's rays to reach earth but it only takes less than a second to see the sun with your eye's close.

Your's sincerely,
Alex

One of your paradox reads:
If the temperature this morning is 0 degrees and the Weather Channel says, "it will be twice as cold tomorrow,".... What will the temperature be?

Assuming you are talking about the celcius scale, then The answer is -136.575 degrees Celcius. Twice as cold means 2 times less heat (am I correct to say that?) and at 0 degrees Celcius, we know that there is heat since it is not absolute zero. To solve, we need to convert it to a Kelvin scale and then half the amount so as to reduce the amount of heat by twice. Of course, if you were already talking about the Kelvin scale then the answer is still 0 because it cannot get any colder than that! Similarly, if it is 1 degree Celcius today, then twice as hot as that would not be 2 degrees, but in fact, 275.15 degrees Celcius. The way to obtain a correct answer of 2 degrees Celcius would be to ask 'What is twice the temperature of 1 degree?'
Just my opinion.

Thanks!
Alan

Hi! I must say that the huge clock theory is not time travel but only a way for us to percieve which has already expired we would recieve the say photons of light which may have been bombarded with previously and thus we would still be traveling forward in time but fast enough to percieve again. second rate is a ratio of distance and time. the speed can be negative if the distance is negative and it can be. it just move backwards. in physics you can do math with negative distance its not anything special that could make time travel possible. we take a point that we consider zero and anything away from out desitination is negative...however the time involved in this equation refers to elapsed time and not time as a marker of history. we have t-not (or the intial time or t sub zero) and (t sub x or our t finish). the absolute value of the difference between the two values is our time t in the equation. it is the magnitude of time elapsed in either direction. we couldn't really use this equation to prove time travel or time reversal. this equation is used to measure a rate in which an object moves over space. the measurement being time elapsed. so the key here is not to travel back faster than time will reach...time is perpetually elapsing. the key here is to make time de-elapse. i think your thought are quite good though. please tell me what you think. Also the number ring, 1/inf does not equal zero it is an appoximation. 1/inf is a value that perpetually approaches zero..like in calculus...as t approches zero x approaches inf. i guess if you can say there is an approachable value of inf then you would be right...so let's assume it. ok. we have 1/-inf....this also approches zero or is zero as we assumed. however it is appoaching it from a very high negative number lets say -n (or negative not infinity) and 1/inf is the same....approaching from n (not infinity also a very high number) mathematically the magnitude between these numbers is 2n or even close to 2inf away....remeber n being the number next to infinity. if it were a ring the distance between n and -n would be very close but its not. mathematically. that would make all mathematics wrong. numbers are our (human) tool of measurement of our universe. i dont think we meant v.hi pos nums to be very close to v.lo neg nums when we speak of numbers in terms of integers. and infinity has no value but it is a vector...it has both multiple values and direction (the direction in which the numbers squentially increment or decreent) you are sorta correct they are equal in values but have different directions. as infinity includes the entire number set. or maybe it isjust one vector with two directions. in all directions. ....who knows.....good thinking.

Chris Flynn's theory states that you can enter a room through the fourth dimension by going back in time or forward in time but here is an email that disputes that fact:

If you assume that a room is a space which it is possible to enter. Forget about going backwards until the room is unmade, simply go forward. You will come to a time when you have found the way in, and you are inside. I say 'You WILL' because I believe going forward to the time when you are in the room is as much a way in as finding a key. There are infinite possiblities one of them is the one you need. Much time theory seems to hold onto 3d concepts, the notion of travelling through time without travelling through space. In fact the idea of travelling seems pretty weird to me, I don't believe you travel you simply arrive. Considering time as a dimension, implies that it is linear/sequential, that you move through it. We view time in a linear way this does not mean that it is. Consider the branch theory of decision making. Every event or decision may have an effect on our future, we may choose branches. I leave half an hour early for work and I am killed by a truck, what happens to the other me who left on time and lived, what happened to the rest of my live? The complication of permutations that result from dividing life to the nth degree seem infinite, but what we see as time may simply be a slide show. The frames of a cartoon or film, a multitude of possibilities, what we see as time is the edited version of these frames run in the preferred sequence of the director. Whether the director is a being, chance or yet unknown law. Does every possible outcome of every decision, act or event, that ever could-has-will happen exist spontaneously. We perceive it in sequence that's all. Parallel dimensions, ghosts, phenomena, are they just a miss shuffle of the cards. Is there a perfect sequence, if so the chances of us being it are very remote. Sorry if i'm boring you :) I think i may have placed too many unfinished ideas together. Barnaby

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esalts@zoomnet.net

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