imagining the tenth dimension
Last time, I outlined the string theory and its (theoretical) impact on our lives. The concepts in string theory, however, requires a minimum of 10-11 dimensions, and up to 26 for some theories.
I stumbled upon this video which illustrates the concepts in the book “Imagining the Tenth Dimension” by Rob Bryanton. The animation does a good job explaining the simple concepts of dimensions and planes.
In short, the dimensions can be represented by:
- 0th dimension: a point
- 1st dimension: a line between 2 points
- 2nd dimension: a plane, with lines intersecting—possessing length and width, but not depth
- 3rd dimension: a fold, jumping from a line to another, to a space—possessing length, width and depth
- 4th dimension: a line, the addition of “time” as a dimension along with the 3 spatial dimensions. This can be explained by imagining the space in 3 dimensions as a point, and a line between 2 of those points (i.e. “timeline”) as the 4th dimension.
- 5th dimension: a split, from our current reality to all possible alternative futures
- 6th dimension: a fold, jumping from our 5th dimension to another 5th dimension, i.e. to an alternative timeline of our reality
- 7th dimension: a point, by treating a 6th dimension (all probabilities of reality from the initial point—big bang—to the infinity) as a point
- 8th dimension: a split, from a line moving from a 6th dimensional point to all possible points, where points are different universes (from big bang to infinity) with maybe differing rules (physics, etc)
- 9th dimension: a fold, jumping from an 8th dimension branch to another
- 10th dimension: a point, treating all possible branches,of all possible universes and all possible timeline as a point.
These concepts all look like it’s stripped out of comic books, with the alternate universes and time travel. It’s a bit hard to accept, I guess, but the concept itself is very intriguing. It does put a perspective into our lives, considering that our whole life and the universe itself is already just a speck of point in the 7th dimension.
Very useful video, now I got at least some understanding of all these dimensions!
very cool stuff,… you’re right though, anyone who’s seen the Matrix trilogy for example, the movie is really about the concepts that you site, not so much about the explosions and fighting, (of course that’s what we love though)