Synthetic Higher Dimensions.

[SaxonViolence]

Friends,

 

Who all has read "Flatland"?

 

I read it in 5th or 6th grade and I loved it. I found it a very clear exposition on the 4th dimension.

 

I came across a copy of the book online and as an adult, I find the book unreadable. It is as boring as watching paint dry.

 

I've read that the author meant the book to be a parody of Victorian Society more than a popular treatise of higher dimensions.

 

Then Einstein said that time is the 4th dimension. I have no problem with that, but you can't really use time as a place to frisk around unrestrainedly and play "Flatland" games in.

 

Then String Theory says that the universe has 10 Dimensions—I don't think there are any holdouts for a larger number at this point.

 

However, the extra dimensions are all squashed down smaller than the little end of nothing whittled down to an extra-fine point. Once again, they're useless for playing "Flatland" type games.

 

By the way, this is something that some people have a hard time grasping...

 

Some years ago, some dudes at some university spent some time working out some specifics of chemistry in 2-dimensions. Turns out that you can't have elements with an atomic number higher than 18—I think that's the number. Why? Well if you think of 2-D protons and neutrons as "Checkers"—ignoring the quantum effects momentarily—there is only so much room inside the radius where the weak nuclear force can hold things together.

 

Imagine our "checker" nuclei being constrained from moving in the 3rd Dimension by a pane of glass on their top and bottom. Now imagine putting them into a 3-D space—i.e. take away the panes of glass...

 

All our "Checker" nuclei would fall apart. Besides, the elaborate constraints that form the basis of 2-D chemistry become meaningless in 3-D.

 

Similarly, if we were to spontaneously transport to a 4-D space, our molecules would probably fall apart without any of the constraints of 3-D space to buttress them.

 

But anyway, "Flatland" dimensions don't seem to exist at all in the real world...

 

But is it a priori impossible that it might not be possible to create them artificially?

 

How? I have no idea. If I did, I'd be working on my Nobel acceptance speech.

 

Imagine the 2-D world of "Flatland" as an incredibly vast sheet of paper. Take a piece of notebook paper and lay it on top of the big sheet. What you have is a miniature alternate dimension. Let us further suppose that you could create some sort of "Ramp" that would allow the 2-D beings to travel to our little room-sized dimension—while never losing the "Glass Pane" 2-D corset that keeps the 2-D "checker" molecules from falling apart.

 

God knows, but it might take very little energy to pull a fairly large sheet of paper along with you as you travel about the 2-D plane.

 

The "sheet of paper" could be used to let you build really big houses on a small lot. Perhaps it might let you carry a room or house-sized storage space along with you everywhere you went.

 

Hell, even a storage space the size of a dorm ice box would excite me. The "War on Drugs" would be won so conclusively that organizations like the DEA could only surrender, shut-down and find real jobs.

 

Also, imagine the saving in fuel if 90% of a space ship was in the mini-dimension. It is even conceivable that with something half in and half out of this universe, that the effects of things like momentum and inertia would be weakened. Maybe even the force that prevents faster than light travel.

 

Anyway, is there anything in Physics that makes such an idea conceivable? Any hints that it might be possible in principle?

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

 

…..Saxon Violence 

Edited June 11, 2019 by SaxonViolence

[Dubbelosix]

Word salad... Common... time to start learning physics and stop being an amateur theorist.

[Amplituhedron]

On the dimensionality of spacetime,  by Max Tegmark

 

In a nutshell, nothing forbids more or less than three dimensions of space, nor does anything forbid more than one dimension of time. Tegmark shows that if the dimensionality of spacetime were different from 3+1, life as we know it, and intelligent observers, would not exist. Thus the 3+1 dimensionality of our spacetime is an anthropic effect — were the dimensionality different, no one would be around to notice.

[SaxonViolence]

Word salad... Common... time to start learning physics and stop being an amateur theorist.

 

EE…

 

99.9999% of Physicists agree that Faster Than Light Travel is impossible. However, any number of reputable Physicists and other scientists have light-heartedly explored hypothetical means to travel faster than light. They even draw conclusions what it would say about our universe if such things are possible.

 

By analogy, could a 2-d person contrive to create a 3-d "Blister" on his 2-D "Sheet" and use it as a small 3-D space?

 

No answer, because 2-d people are hypothetical.

 

Could we, as 3-D people raise a local 4-D Blister in our 3-D Space and exploit it?

 

Maybe not.

 

Maybe there is a monolithic block of equations somewhere that rule this out in this or any other conceivable universe.

 

Maybe, it is so much of a Logical Contradiction that future programmers can't even build it into a simulated 3-D Universe without collapsing the program.

 

I certainly wouldn't ask you to recreate so many hundreds of lines of equations for me to admire—but could you at least point me in the right direction?

 

Doggone—reputable scientists can speculate about alternate dimensions, faster than light travel, time travel and Boltzman Brains—BUT WHEN I try to speculate about Synthetic Higher Dimensions, I get,  "Run along and play."

 

I'm not yet convinced of the justice of this. 

 

…..Saxon Violence

Edited June 13, 2019 by SaxonViolence

[Vmedvil2]

I don't have anything against this, but always when you speculate about something of this nature you should have a proposed methodology of actually generating these dimensions, it helps no one if you don't have a way to physically do the subject matter. It is ludicrous speculation until you find a way to make it physically possible make the leap from a amateur that thinks he knows to someone that knows they know by coming up with a methodology of dimensional creation only then will you be the genius that imagined it first. 

Edited June 13, 2019 by VictorMedvil

[Dubbelosix]

On the dimensionality of spacetime,  by Max Tegmark

 

In a nutshell, nothing forbids more or less than three dimensions of space, nor does anything forbid more than one dimension of time. Tegmark shows that if the dimensionality of spacetime were different from 3+1, life as we know it, and intelligent observers, would not exist. Thus the 3+1 dimensionality of our spacetime is an anthropic effect — were the dimensionality different, no one would be around to notice.

 

Actually, fine tuning laws require that a universe must exist with three dimensions otherwise it could not exist.

[Dubbelosix]

Relativity implies it has to exist with four, simply because of the symmetries of space and time.