The Fourth Dimension.

Reason 1-Time as space are linked (Einstein's relativity). The fact that you can measure the time of a moving object is a confirmation that time is one of the dimensions. If a particle is MOVING..you are measurjng a 4D motion in a 4Dplane, not 1D. Reason 2- space IS RELATIVE...and it varies according to TIME. As you approach speed of light space contract...time dilates. This is a CONFIRMATION that this 4 components are linked together..hence Space-time (relativity). You are defining time wrong.. that's why your conclusions are misleading . Time is in theory not unidirectional. If you travel faster than speed of light time should reverse. It seems a simple misconception of "time".

If you know c or c++ language try storing values to this 4d array and find how it works int a[][][][]

You're comparing time and spatial coordinates! These two are completely different concepts. That's where the concept of spacetime comes into play. What these 4 dimensions mean is that in this universe we need these 4 parameters to determine the state of an object. You cannot define a position of an object without mentioning the time when you recorded your observations. Coz in a different time it will be elsewhere. Hence time is a fourth dimension

Multi-dimensional spaces, four or five dimensions are a usual tool for describing independent variables with no correlation between themselves. When applied to physics, a fourth dimension may indeed be time, because it's independent from space dimensions, according to this definition. You, me, everything, we are nothing but a snapshot of space taken at a specific time.

In order to have 4th dimension space you have to make 4 lines intersecting at a point ,which are mutually perpendicular to each other(i.e every line must make 90 deg. with other three lines).But this not possible in our 3D world.

Hey, Pranit, You must take a look at this . Not too complex and easy to understand

The fourth dimension is like a video recorder, capturing at an infinite number of frames per second. The ZhiJie Goh which started this note has ceased to exist. Every moment now, we are changing. We are a different person.

i think you might be getting confused about what dimensions are, think of it this way imo. consider that to locate any point on a sheet of paper, i need only draw 2 axes, no less, and use that as my coordinate grid. (say, the x and y axes). if i have a volume in 3D space and i want to locate any point in it, i can use a third axis, z, say. in general for n dimensional space, i need n axes to locate a point. this way of thinking of a dimension as simply a piece of information about a point in a space allows one to get to the idea that time is a 4th dimension. not in the spatial sense, but in some sense you can see that time is also required to describe an event fully. say if you had a party, you'd need to know where in space to go to the party and when it is as well.

Should we create a Facebook page for this ? So we can discuss better?

watch interstellar

szia

We are living in a three-dimensional universe, so it is hard to imagine or think about what would be the fourth dimension.

But after reading your article, the idea of "Seeing Through Objects" crossed by mind..

We can not see through objects, this supports the idea that "the $n^{th}$ dimension can't be seen or used in a $(n-1)^{th}$ dimensional world.

We can measure the fourth dimension in 1D, 2D , or 3D , maybe by claiming that a certain object has or has no "tendency or capability to make others see through it". (I hope this is clear, or say that we cannot measure or understand the fourth dimension as long as we are in a third dimensioanl universe).

I hope this makes sense, be free to criticize any point.

Time is the fourth dimension. Actually, we are only measuring the fourth dimension using one dimensional motions and not 4 dimensions using one dimensional motion. Height is a single dimension. An object can have height without having any length or breadth, like (0,0,z). Also, time is relative, but so is length. For example, consider 1m. It is the distance traveled by light in vacuum in 1/(299,792,458)th of a second. So, we are defining length relative to time. In fact, the faster you go, the smaller you are. Fast, by itself, is based only on time. So, your friends are quite correct in saying time is the 4th dimension. (4th dimension is actually SPACETIME)

Take a look at this. I can't really explain it in words, but this might help you ^__^

watch this video

Think of a 3d shape going through a plane. One the plane it would appear that the slice is changing shape but in an extra dimension it is a higher dimensional object moving through. This is what 4D as time really means. We can only see the 3D intersection of the 4D universe which has time forward and backward.

1.| Length is not well defined even Euclid in his elements could not give the correct definition of length. 2.| Length like time is also relative it changes as speed approaches that of light. But I am also in agreement with Pranit in some aspects as time does not have any physical significance for us.

Time is not a space dimension! It's a total different thing. When we work with relativistic problems, we take the three space dimensions as a whole and time as an another dimension. Do not consider it as a "space" dimension. Time is something which only has one direction. i.e forward unlike space dimensions. Had time been similar to space dimension , we could not only travel into past but future as well. I will recommend the book "what is relativity" by Jeffrey Bennett for time and spacetime understanding.

Perhaps I might be wrong But IT have a different understanding of the 4th dimension We can observe from previous dimesions that each one of them is a collection of the previous one Collection of many 1d objects gives a 2d object But as far as collection of 3d objects is concerned it can as well be defined in itself only But suppose something was able to exist at different places at once Like its head at one place its body in other this way it woukd be intangible to other 3d objects. So this is my theory please correct me if you feel otherwise

M not sure whether time is the fourth dimension or not . what I think is , if we imagine a cube or any 3d object , its length breadth and height gives us a fair picture of 3 dimensions , any change in any of the 3 measurement can be taken care by using x y and z axises . apart from these any change in cube can only be its position as a whole . a unit measuring that change in position will be the fourth dimension . perhaps our whole world is a 3d system which is.moving in a direction and the 4th dimension measures that movement . perhaps evolution happens because world is moving , what if its not the meteors that strikes dinosaurs and it was the whole system moving towards meteors .. The fourth dimension measures the relative motion between two 3d systems

i m still not very well versed with eisteins relativity concepts.....after all all we percieve see is the project of reality on the three dimensional space......we may add more and more dimensions in our mathematical model to explain reality.....but by the endof the day all we have in our hands is the three dimensional projection of reality .....according to my opinion and the little shallow understanding gained by me is that it could prove much better understanding of reality only if ......." we considered the entity called "time" as some very unique and subtle(difficult to percieve) form of energy.......here by the word "subtle" i mean it is some entity that has existence is a realm unaccessible to us but we are definitely exposed to certain effects and nature of time.... its subtleness just reminds us of the subtleness of the software part of the computer system.....we cant describe software programs as some objects that we can touch, feel and see or some object that we can describe in terms of particles(the usual darling trend followed in modern science- somehow we force ourself to get some particle to explain certain undetectable entity or even phenomenon......similarly time is an entity that can never be explained in terms of favourite trend followed in science that is to get some particle.....the reason why i m stress on this irrelevant connection and also a possibility of "the particles" is that the moment u use the word "energy" it is very tempting to start searching for some particles....so to avoid that possiblity i m condemning this "particle notion".....time according to my opinion is some subtle energy that has just one job - to kill events to allow new events to appear which are in turn killed by the newer upcoming events(very simple and lucid and might be incomplete description)....to keep discuusion simple let us consider a particle observed from some inertial frame of ref. moving with some nonrelativistic speed ....the particle is at some instant tA at a point A.......after the passage of some time it is at some point B at some instant tB....even if the particle is at rest we find the particle at the same point but the time coordinate is changed from tA to tB......suppose we have everything :the required temperature , the required pressusre and required concentration of chemical and even the required catalyst ready with us........but suppose this entity "time" stops killing events no matter what arrangements we make.....it is impossible for the reaction to occur.... infact nothing would work if this energy "time" did not exist or stopped its functioning....this shows to some extent that time is an energy...... friends please comment on this veiw of mine.....waiting for a reply

constant motion we dont always see constant motion but it seems reasonable but the tesseeract though is just an attempt at putting a 4d plane in 3dish "graphics" who knows what 4d is like just like we can control an object in 3d and modify imagine the access we have if we knew what the 4th plane has to offer especially quick travel through space. btw time can be measured in one dimension but ironically we are measuring that one dimensional motion in 3 dimension aka this world. who knows what the 4d plane is i dont want the knowledge to get in the wrong hands it might be destructive or constructive. i honestly dont know what this 4th dimension could be, just thinking about it makes me wonder in awe. i think its this analyze from my idea nextby, i think the 4th dimension is like a string with a rocket floating on it you shorten the string you shorten the rockets path to the next end point from this i say that the fourth dimension is the stability and instabilty of the other three dimensions(solid,liquid,gas,plasma,Bose.Einstein condensate) the 4th dimension is space and its manipulation in these "crappy" three dimensions we can only go through space . the 4th dimension is what this universe is truly made out of (dark matter and energy) the unknown stuff that is the fluff or filler in this universe to actually find the dark stuff we need an understanding of the 4th dimension. The 4th dimension is the hidden dimension the one made of dark stuff(energy & matter) but i think with manipulating the dark stuff you can manipulate distances without the dark stuff the universe if probably like a balloon without air. if only i could take a vacation to another planet by shortening the string i was talking about the 4th dimensional string.

I feel time is the ordered sequence of events in a higher dimension where each event, each moment has its own unique identity.

Imagine a stationary object..it doesn't travel any distance..so only thing u can measure is... How long has it been there.. So time is one of the dimensions.

You are right.Time is surely not a dimension but one of direction among those four , from which 4th dimension is made of. Another one reason for time being a direction is that Space and time are linked.Space changes its properties according to time. Juliano Morimoto is right .

Time is a dimension. We measure the world relative to time.

The human mind does not see the world in a way that is "true". It sees the world in a way that is "useful".

Time travel is possible in the forward direction. There is no evidence that going back in time is possible. I like to believe that it works on the same principle as entropy, that it is easier to go in one direction than the other, though not necessarily impossible.

Age is the total amount of time difference experienced by one's body.

Rotation in four-dimensional space

https://youtu.be/R1rzI0Y_d3I The 5-cell is an analog of the tetrahedron.

https://youtu.be/BjvdrhK8yws Tesseract is a four-dimensional hypercube - an analog of a cube.

https://youtu.be/Pa0c7M4lZv0 The 16-cell is an analog of the octahedron.

https://youtu.be/np0ZxC1wXqc The 24-cell is one of the regular polytope.

https://youtu.be/T01qw0_qitI A hypersphere is a hypersurface in an n-dimensional Euclidean space formed by points equidistant from a given point, called the center of the sphere.

4D means spacetime we can assume it by an example ; a cube should be taken as 3d object if the cube shown is splitted into two (not in half) we will get a dimension between same plane the distance between them cannot be seen in 3D that is the fourth dimension where time is stoped as assumed . and also described as the method of teleportation I want to present it with a diagram but the no facility posting diagrams on it.

No, I disagree. Coz length breadth n height r dimensions of space but time..... well it is different but its our perception isn't it? I know I'm talking in riddles but your question was a riddle too

I would definitely like to know what @David Mattingly & @Michael Mendrin think about this .I expect some answers from them...

One more addition that you might want to do in the reasons, We can travel along the 3 Dimensions, like going to another point in the space. But time is unidirectional, you can't go beyond what is going on.

In the 3D , you can go and come back along any of the dimensions.

@Pranit Bavishi

We can have breadth of a line segment which makes it 2D. If we add height to this we get a cuboid which makes our setup 3D. Now this is a static universe. Now if we add time dimension which is independent of other 3 dimensions, we now have 4D universe. I hope i have cleared your doubt.

As you are saying that the motion is 1d it is not completely true because it is the generalised form of 4d motion where 2 other dimensions do not change through out the motion.

A 4-D being would be a god to us. It would see everything in our world. It could even look inside your stomach and remove your breakfast without cutting through your skin, just like you could remove a dot inside a circle by moving it up into the third dimension, perpendicular to the circle, without breaking the circle.

A 4-D being would be a god to us. It would see everything in our world. It could even look inside your stomach and remove your breakfast without cutting through your skin, just like you could remove a dot inside a circle by moving it up into the third dimension, perpendicular to the circle, without breaking the circle.

Reason 1: Your reasoning is wrong here because without a time dimension there is no concept of a 'travelling' particle. You would only know that the particle is traveling when you observe its position with time. So even if it travels in a one dimensional space, the fact that its traveling makes it a two dimensional 'spacetime'. Reason 2: Well, length is also a relative concept according to Einstein's special relativity.

Space-time is the basis of all the theories of multiverse. Dimensions are of 2 types: space dimensions and time dimensions. Combination of them defines the dimension of a particular universe. Eg: Our universe exists in 3+1 dimension. That means our universe has 3 space dimensions (Length, Breadth and Height) and 1 time dimension. As for the 4th dimension, if you are talking in context to space then it means the extension of diagonals of an object (You can search for the proper explanation as I cannot do that in written). In context to time, I do not know :P :)

dimension is not just defining a space,if we say about a fourth dimension ,it says about the object..i mean both the location in terms of space and even in terms of time...eg;if we need the distance from delhi to hyderabad we can say it in both distance and even in time so time can be a 4rth dimension.....i may be wrong!...i donno exactly

A change in position spends dimension. The position itself is in universal scale having coordinates. lets say you have a point living in zero dimension which finds a way out to other dimension creating the first dimension, the point didnt know that it is in the first dimension. To go to 1d you need 2 zero d. So to go 4d we need 2 3d. And we call it TIME. just my idea.

Here are my objections to your reasons. Reason1, is simply a trapping of language. What if there's an object that exists in 4th dimension, and we are measuring motion, time, length breadth and thinking that is the object? Reason2, Relative to what? I can argue that length is defined relative to the standard objects at IUPAC.

4 dimension implies moving through space-time.......the continuum which can be put to use to describe an objects postion before and after some time!!!!!!!

after the space, there is nothing more then to measure . so it's time ! ! :D

yes I am agree with @Juliano Morimoto . Any moving particle have all the 4 dimensions whether it is following linear path or rectangular path. And of course space is the function of time.

In some respects it can be, but in others in can't. I'd say it is, given that (as special relativity has shown) space and time are relative and practically interchangeable in many situations, so time deserves just as much recognition as space. Also, you can mathematically define it as a dimension. However, an argument against this would be almost purely philosophical, and that just gets annoying.

It does not needs to be time, a function y= c is a one d function, f(x) is a 2 d function, f(x,y) is a 3 d funtion and so on. Yes time can act as a dimention as it happens in a wave equation y= sin( kx - wt), this is a 3 d equation.

Note that a cube within a cube is the proyection or shade of the 4th dimension on 3d.

Even length is relative from one person to other ...

how do you define dimension and time?

Time is a forth dimension but it is not the fourth dimension. Just as we can say the 1st is height, 2nd is depth, 3rd is width, we can also say that the 3rd is the height, 1st is the depth, and the 2nd is the width.

Physics says that a body can never be at absolute rest It is of because, if a body is still existing,then it means that it is going in the direction of time

time and space are relative and einstein's theory has been proved, also the concept of length also changes with rounding corners.

Rate of change

Hello! Time can be treated as a whole new dimension, but it has no equal footing with the dimension of position (e.g. rectilinear coordinates). There can be a fourth dimension, there can be infinite dimensions! But THE fourth dimension is arbitrary, and can be treated as what is mathematically plausible (e.g. transforming to another vector space). The thing is that, most of the time we set functions (velocity, for example) to have time as a variable, therefore confusing it being a position dimension (or, as I'm afraid, a vector). So, there you have it. Not just 4 dimensions but infinitely many dimensions, with time as just a 'dictator' of the object's state.

its quite easy to understand that time is 4th dimension.

actually the surrounding which we see around have more than 4 dimensions but it depends on the observer how he perceives the object.

Ex - A electric wire passing far from us looks like a line or 1 dimensional from far distance but... for an ant or insect crawling on it , it is like a cylinder i.e 3 dimensional .

and as time is relative( i.e. it depends on mass and velocity for the rate of time to pass) similarily length is also relative (i.e. depends on velocity)

First we need to change our mind set about the dimension ..our mind deals each thing like coordinate geometry ..x y z hmm But we have made some things that really do not exist...... Like. Squar' circal 'line and other 2d... And saying that time is not a dimension is not right... Understand it like ..... You r watching a slow motion movie and a ball is thrown from the ground and when ball fly in space it makes its so many copies and our mind cannot notice that pictures and makes them signal.. At each second the ball has infinitely copies..and each second represents a different location an structure of balll.....

this is the answer to the above question its not time 1st 2nd and 3rd dimensions occupy a continuous state space meaning a square is built on another square a cube on another cube but in 4th dimension each 4th powers and higher is an independent entity much like how the suns of the universe are look at my solution https://brilliant.org/discussions/thread/solution-to-why-we-cant-see-4dimensionsand-higher/?ref_id=453528

Has it ever occured to you that space and time are two entirely different dimensions just happened to be tangled in points. Like how human mind can analyse space dimensions, maybe a more intelectual brain can analyse time in different dimensions where humans are limited to understanding only 1 dimension of time.

I myself thinks alike that time is a 4th dimension. As good as a super scientist, I also don't have any reason to explain this. And one more point, as Einstein said that time may be a continuum woven perfectly with space. UGHHHH I JUST DON'T KNOW.....:(

the most awkward thing i feel about time and its study is that .what we are observing just now and trying to make the perception of it with respect to time is further the function of time. i logically don't understand how can we have anything independent or exclucing time

are we talking about math dimensions or universe theory dimensions, in math there's an infinite amount of dimensions in a object but with universe theory there is like 10 to 11 depending on what you believe time being the disputed dimension.

Time is certainly a dimension.When you say that we can measure time of a particle moving rectilinearly, it is actually not time.It is the concept that we have applied .It is the flow of time,which is a single coordinate which is considered to be fixed on earth.For example,The coordinate of a point on the x-axis can be written as(x,0,0).We have taken this rate of flow of time on earth as our reference frame.But the flow of time gets slow near a strong gravitational field.Like,near a black hole space-time gets curved due to the high gravitation of the black hole ie. flow of time slows down.If you saw "Interstellar",then remember for the planet near the black hole,one hour stands for 7 earth years.So,for earth one sec equals one sec.This is a single coordinate in the time dimension.But there are places near much stronger gravitation fields where where one earth sec is .00000001 second.This is another coordinate.So,when we say that some event occured for 5 seconds,it is actually not time.It is the concept created by us for helping us in complex problems. There is an interesting example.The satellites orbting the earth experience less gravitation pull than we do on earth.Thus time on earth flows extremely minutely slowly than on those satellites.For this reason the satellites have to right their clocks by one second every 35-40 years.So you may say that they are on a fractionally different coordinate of time dimension than us. If you could or could not understand please reply.Thanks

I AGREE WITH YOU

What is the second dimension? What is the sound of one hand clapping? There is not a clear ordinance of dimensions.

We cannot define units. For e.g. if you were to define 1m without defining 1cm , 1Km etc., how would you do ? How do we come to know that 1cm is this much or that much relative to something????

What is momentum?

Time is a dimension, but there is no such thing as a "fourth" dimension. What order we put the dimensions in is arbitrary. Like, we could start with width as dimension one, then length, then height, or length width height... It doesn't matter. However, time acts differently than other spatial dimensions, so it wouldn't make much sense to call it the fourth dimension. It is the first time dimension, not the fourth space dimension. So yes, it is another dimension, but it is not chronologically the fourth.

i think it should not be time . As in 3-D we measure all three dimensions in length so 4th dimension should be a unit of length. It may be that we have 4- D around but we r not understand it.

We have three spatial dimensions (length, breadth and height) and one temporal dimension (time) in our universe currently known to man. Now some theoretical physicists say that there at more than three spatial dimensions but they are minisculed. The big bang only released the aforementioned 3+1 dimensions but there are other dimensions. But one can only surmise.

The imaginary thread known as space -time curvature which determines the space-time distortion is the 4th dimension

I think we can't differentiate space and time they both exist simultaneously both are faces of same coin.whatever u want to do whether u want to draw a line,square,cuboid u always need space and time simultaneously.

I like to imagine that, if we were able to see an object in 4D, we would see it from all possible angles, that is, the entirety of its surface, at the same time. I don't have any scientific reasoning for this, but maybe someone would.

We can se it in this way 1. Group of infinite points us a line (1D) 2. Group of infinite line is a plane 2D and group of infinite plane is a 3D plane So 4D is a group of infinite 3D plane and to do this we assume that time provide s this new plane in which all individual exist in a plane that is at certain angle to the plane you are in .

You can think 4D plane as a bread loaf in which your time plane is different from one which is moving relative to you i.e you cut that loaf at different angle than that of mine.

What about this:

$s^2 = x^2 + y^2 + z^2 - (ct)^2$