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132 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+46The 10th dimension is a 404 error? everyone should be able to imagine that, especially if you're on digg...
- mhockey14221, on 10/12/2007, -3/+42My head asplode
- mathchemist, on 10/12/2007, -4/+38This video goes very well with the BBC documentary that recently made the front page called "Parallel Universes". http://digg.com/videos_educational/BBC_s_Parallel_Universes
Before I saw this, I had no idea in hell how to even imagine a 5th dimension, let alone an 8th one or a 10th one. But by using the concept of dimensions that build upon one another (e.g., the first dimension (line) is constructed by a set of zero-dimensional points; the second dimension (plane) is constructed by a set of of one dimensional lines; etc) and applying it to higher dimensions really helps people like me (who aren't very well versed in thinking about complex questions about the universe) to understand things as far out as theoretical physics. - JavertHolmes, on 10/12/2007, -6/+38http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akaD9v460yI -- this is the best scientific explanation I've come across on the internet for why there can't be 11 dimensions. I dare you to argue otherwise.
- chjb, on 10/12/2007, -4/+29I'm sorry to be the first one to point this out, but this whole animation is not really related to any of the real physics of extra dimensions. A real discussion would be lengthy (if you want to see a presentation by someone who actually knows what they're talking about, read "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene), but just to point out one bit of nonsense, consider the bit where he starts talking about the dimensions which correspond to different sets of initial conditions. It is much easier to discuss the space of initial conditions than he makes it seem -- you need to identify all the variable parameters that go into the initial conditions, and then you just let those parametrize a space. There is no reason that you could only have three -- indeed you are much more likely to have a large number of tunable parameters which determine your initial conditions, which would lead to much more than ten dimensions.
Unfortunately, the last point it moot, because this space of initial conditions is NOT contributing to the spatial extra dimensions that are discussed in the entirety of theoretical physics, and string theory. In fact, the reason that we say that string theory requires ten dimensions has nothing to do with what the author discusses, but rather has to do with some technical consistency arguments which are required for the theory to be self-consistent. Indeed, there are other ways to satisfy these conditions, and there exist string theories in a number of dimensions other than 10 (the so-called non-critical string theories). It's just that the theories in ten dimensions are by far the most interesting, and the ones which are the most likely to describe the real world.
So while the animation may be an interesting mind game to play, it is pretty much divorced from the actual physics of extra dimensions.
note: the concept of extra dimensions has been well-understood in mathematics for a long time, and indeed there is not problem in talking about mathematical spaces which are of arbitrarily high dimension (even infinite-dimensional). The idea that one can inherently only deal with up to ten dimensions carries no weight -- higher dimensional spaces than that have been well studied for quite some time. - Adamande, on 10/12/2007, -4/+28I'm very happy nobody searched for dupes on this one. I haven't seen it before and I found it extremely interesting. It actually made me laugh out loud, because I understood it. I never thought I would understand 10 dimensions, but this video gave me a pretty good idea.
So now I'm happier and more educated than I was a few minutes ago, thanks to the dupe. If you've seen this before, why not ignore it? It will be off the front page in a few hours, anyway. - TheIconoclast31, on 10/12/2007, -8/+32This has been posted before, and it has about 1700 diggs:
http://digg.com/general_sciences/A_Look_into_the_TENTH_DIMENSION. - godmode, on 10/12/2007, -4/+26Very cool heady stuff, but half way through I just couldnt wrap my mind around it anymore.
- yevkasem, on 10/12/2007, -5/+25imagining the 10th time this makes it to the front page....
- nthitz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20It would seem he got a lot of his ideas from the classic book Flatland http://www.amazon.com/Flatland-Romance-Dimensions-Thrift-Editions/dp/048627263X
- sladek, on 10/12/2007, -4/+21One of the most interesting articles i've read on digg, explained better than words thanks to the narration and video
- penneyisok, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19Sites down, heres a link to the video
http://one.revver.com/watch/99898 - chjb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15mediaphile -- I'm sorry if my essay was confusing, but that should not be used as an excuse for the video, which is in fact inaccurate.
TSK -- the "extra dimensions" they discuss are wrong. Trying to re-tell the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics in the language of extra dimensions is misled (this is what he does when he gets to the fifth dimension). Also trying to interpret the space of initial conditions on the universe as a three-dimensional space of spacial extra dimensions is just nonsense.
Re: a simple explanation of string theory, that's a hard thing to provide. It's a complicated theory. I can tell you what it addresses, and allude to the reason for extra dimensions in the theory.
String theory is supposed to be a theory of quantum gravity. That is, it is a framework for doing particle which treats gravity and the other forces (electro-weak, strong) in a coherent fashion. Such an explanation is necessary because in places where gravity is strong over short distances (i.e. in black holes, at the big-bang singularity) both gravitational effects and quantum effects are important, and trying to naively combine General Relativity with quantum field theory results in nonsense. (perturbative) string theory states that the fundamental particles we observe are vibrational modes of a quantized 1-dimensional filament, and the different vibrational modes can give rise at low energies to different looking particles (i.e. the graviton to carry the gravitational force, photon to carry electromagnetic force, etc.).
The good news is that the theory does quantize gravity in a consistent way -- it allows us to treat regimes where gravity and the other forces are all important without any physical inconsistencies. Depending on who you ask, this makes string theory either the only or one of a small number of consistent ways to quantize gravity. String theory is certainly the most studied one of these, and it is the one which most easily encompasses the presence of forces OTHER than gravity.
There are a number of pieces of bad news, depending how you look at it. It turns out that in general, if you want the theory to be self-consistent and contain fermions, you need the strings to propagate in 9 spatial dimensions (+ 1 time dimension). Obviously, we see only 3 spatial dimensions. This leaves 6 extra dimensions. I encourage you to look at the book by Brian Greene which I mentioned for a discussion of the *correct* way to think about these extra dimensions, and different attempts to reconcile the 10 dimensions of string theory with the 4 that we observe in our day to day lives.
Another piece of bad news is that at experimentally accessible energies, string theory is not falsifiable as we currently understand it. This has been the subject of some debate in the physics community lately and I won't go into it. Suffice it to say that there are scenarios in which we could do experiments and convince ourselves that string theory is correct. There are also scenarios in which in order to do this one must reach energies which are not possible with current technology (or the technology of the foreseeable future).
That's probably too much for this note already. I hope it helps some. - epitaphic, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15But didn't they show in the BBC video how there's probably 11 dimensions and not just 10? If 10 is everything then 11 is... another everything to everything?
- whymanwhy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13The Tenth Dimension, if you went there on acid your mind would melt.
- ahawks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Sounds a lot like the movie Deja Vu to me.
- knightblade2oo4, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11i collapsed into epileptic shock after #5.
- marz157, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Cool video but its been posted before.
Plus we all know there are 2 universes from futurama. Ours and the one where every one wears cowboy hats. - kingfelix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9flatland is available for download from google book search:
http://books.google.com/books/pdf/Flatland__by_A__Square.pdf?vid=OCLC43717940&id=u8HOxy7lQYUC&output=pdf&sig=-rYQwzfrYa7ZinTGQJ0LPZfK0hE
i highly recommend it. this presentation is interesting, but contains some errors. for example, a 2d flatlander would not "see" 2d shapes such as circles, squares, or a human outline. all the 2d flatlander could see would be a 1-dimensional line.
flatland gets it right, this presentation........ not exactly. - mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Agreed. I know we're supposed to just shut up and stop complaining, but seriously. There wouldn't be an extra step in the submission process asking to check about dupes if dupes weren't important. The search box is your friend, folks.
- TruthElixirX, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Flatland is amazing. One of the best books I ever read, even though it is very "mathy". Anyone who is interested in this stuff should check it out.
- TheoDork, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13http://www.duggmirror.com
- mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11A search for 'tenth dimension' brought up ten diffferent articles on this same story.
http://www.digg.com/search?area=all&age=all&sort=new&search-buried=1&s=tenth+dimension&submit=Search - ToastBusters, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Wait, the answer isn't 42?
- mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12your essay demonstrates precisely why this video was created.
- JJP0223, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11That's some really confusing stuff to understand, but really interesting.
- rnelsonee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7If you liked Flatland, read Sphereland, as it builds on the concepts of Flatland but really gets you comfortable with the 4th spatial dimension (if there is one).
For example, draw a left-footed shoe on a piece of paper. In 2 dimensions, you can rotate, scale, and turn the shoe. But it in the end, it's still a left-footed shoe. To a Flatlander, it's always a left shoe - no changing it. But if you, as a 3D guy, is looking down at it, it'd be trivial for you to go down, and pluck that shoe out of the 2D land, flip it over, and plot it back down as a right shoe (you flip it while it's above the paper). So the 2D creature sees a left shoe, it disappears, and boom, comes back as a right shoe.
If you extrapolate that, a 4D creature looking down on us (who can see our insides as well as our outside at the same time), can grab one of our left shoes, make it disappear, and come back as a right shoe. It would seem impossible to us, but would be completely trivial to a 4D being. - usbserial, on 10/12/2007, -6/+13I agree with what it said up to the 7th dimension. After that it's all basically repeating (8th = 5th, 9th = 6th, 10th = 7th). The only difference is assuming different starting conditions for the big bang. However, one might argue that the big bang contained ALL the possibility for all eventualities and so the 8th dimension is covered under the 5th dimension -- different possibilities.
While I disagree with his idea of the 8th through 10th dimension, he does word explanations quite eloquently, and the idea of the 10th (7th) dimension is quite beautiful-- the big bang WAS the 10th dimension; it held all of everything; an infinity of possibilities.
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Now, if you really want to think of something to blow your mind, try thinking of the 4th, 5th, 6th, etc SPACIAL dimensions; where 3d is to them as 2d is to us-- infinitely thin. Where the coordinate system would be (w,x,y,z) so what would appear to be occupied (1,1,1,0), could actually still hold infinite more things (1,1,1,1)(1,1,1,2)...
Imagine a set of spheres floating in neat rows and columns, except with depth too. So you see a set of 27 spheres, 3 by 3 by 3, all floating in the air. Now imagine they are actually all on the ground in the 4th dimension, but appear to be floating to us because we can't see the ground they are on. Kind of like a top-down 2d view of our 3d world.
Pretty crazy, eh? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7as a math major who has actually taken graduate courses in higher dimensional geometry and topology, this video makes my soul hurt inside.
He's OK with the explanations up to around 3 or 4; but after that it's just hogwash. You can't "fold the 4th dimension through the 5th" and quantum decoherance has nothing to do with dimensionality, the "parallel universe" model isn't invoking "the 5th dimension" at all. His kind of explanations are totally destroyed when trying to talk about manifolds with even more dimensions; how is he going to explain something that has 59726341 dimensions? much less something with *infinite* dimensions (yes, you can have infinite dimensions, even uncountably infinite dimensions...)
If you're confused by the video, you should be; because he's wrong. Please don't waste your money on this guy's book. If you want a REAL explanation of dimensionality read:
"Flatland" by Edwin Abbot (a must, it's short and sweet)
"Hyperspace" by Michio Kaku
"Three Dimensional Geometry and Topology" by William "Wild Bill" Thurston (just the first half really, the second gets into some pretty deep, hefty theory)
"The Road to Reality" by Sir Roger Penrose (if you want to see how this actually applies to the real world)
listed in the order you should read them in, although the last two are maybe interchangable, they both get pretty deep and heady, they're essentially graduate-level textbooks, although friendly ones :o) with explanations that are pretty accessible to anybody with even basic level math skills
a dimension is just another variable to determine location. That's it, nothing fancy. The best way to visualize integer dimensions is this: start with something n-dimensional, stack a bunch together so corresponding points are adjacent, and you get something n-1 dimensional. stack up a bunch of points, you get a line; a bunch of lines, you get a square; a bunch of squares you get a cube; a bunch of cubes you get a hypercube; etc. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@chjb
Thank you! finally somebody with some rationality.
More than being divorced from the physics of multiple dimensions, this guy is divorced from the mathematics as well.
I understand that some people like visuals and cartoons, but just because it looks neat doesn't mean it's right...
here's a video that's actually mathematically/scientifically sound:
"The Elegant Universe" (the book is really good too)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Jf7YkwW4zRI - TheChihuahua, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10Well perhaps if you didn't LIVE on digg you wouldn't keep noticing dupes...damn, you people bitch and moan, it's not like you're paying for a subscription or something is it?
- bjorno, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I agree. they wouldn't be able to see from above as the video showed. They could move only on the x and y axis thus seeing every thing as a line. The line would get longer and shorter as the 3D object moved through the plane.
That being said, they wouldn't be able to "see" in the first place. So, the whole argument is moot. I think they were just using the Flatlander's perception as a tool for pedagogy. - phronko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5When it comes to science, I would rather have a slightly confusing explanation of reality than a crystal clear explanation of an inaccurate fantasy. At least, when you put the work into actually understanding the real explanation, you're closer to the truth rather than further from it. Thanks chjb.
- AdverseEntropy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I remember watching this the last time it was on Digg (not a complaint, just a statement).
Very cool and mind boggling stuff. - fluffyturtle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I get all of it but the second dimension part... Why would they (the flatlanders) view a balloon in such a way or a person for example? What gives them the ability to view cross-sections as compared to say, multilayered cross-sections which, due to them only seeing two dimensions, only appear as a flattened version? As an example, viewing a 4d shape without depth makes it appear as flat to us. We get no “special” insight into the object only perceiving two dimensions.
Furthermore what would dictate what cross-sections they were viewing at any given time if we assumed their example was correct? - mcl768, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4kingfelix: you make a good point, "flatlanders" would only see 1D line changing in length, they can only see 1 dimension, which is one less than what they are living in. We live in a 3D world, but only see 2D at any given moment, one less than we live in. Interesting stuff to think about.
- chicbicyclist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4After about an hour of thinking, I actually got that! I think.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program_d.html
- lordmetroid, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5That is only one theory among many... I personally don't particularly favor the membrane explanation among others. But I think it's important to know that there are many other plausible theories that has emerged in the last 5 years.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+12I agree. although this is a good story and some ppl may not have seen it, it gets annoying for those of us who have.
- mentor972, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"But didn't they show in the BBC video how there's probably 11 dimensions and not just 10? If 10 is everything then 11 is... another everything to everything?"
--They are counting the 0 dimension. That makes 11. - Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Interesting video that in its own way explains why there might be 10, not 9 or 11 dimensions in actions, and I must have missed it the first time on Digg.
If we in the future can also find research supporting the string theory, that might also mean we'd gain a ton of other knowledge as implications of this theory, sort of how Einstein's theories gave insight in a number of scientific areas one may not thing are directly connected to the theory itself at first. If string theory would find empirical support, it would for example mean there may be multiple universes.
And I have to say that since the first three dimensions can be folded, why shouldn't for example time be able to?
Note that the end of this movie however had the note that this isn't an accepted view of the dimensions in string theory, but can be useful to at least give viewers the idea of what it's about. I have to agree about that, and believe string theorists often talk about the 6 more dimensions being "tightly folded" on a microscopic level, whatever *this* means, but that doesn't seem to exactly agree with the views put forward in this video? - matrixfusion, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10Pseudoscience at its finest.
- cybermort, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6very interesting video but this is crossing the line of physics and going into metaphysics. We know the strange nature of subatomic particles, and that it seems to us that we select our future by collapsing the wave function of a particle but still is yet unproven that we are actually selecting our future in that manner, or as in a different hypothesis that we create a new parallel universe at the instance the wave function is collapsed. This video fails to present it self as just "hypothetical" ideas (which is what it is) based on current theories still in development and that's kind of deceiving. Reminds me of "What The Bleep We Know"
- spliffy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3thanks vegasmacguy, i had started that series a while back but forgotten about it. i think i will resume it.
why was i dugg down though? it was a perfectly valid question. i think you guys just don't like when people question popular concepts amongst the community. am i correct? - noseeme, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3As horrifying as it seems, this view is actually semi-obsolete. There has been an extension past the tenth.
- Battlecry, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I'd say a duplicate article after a year isn't so bad. It's not like it was on the front page yesterday or last week. And I missed it the first time it came around.
- vegasmacguy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Its the math that tells string theorists that there are 11 dimensions. You are correct though. There is no way to prove string theory through experimentation. If you want to learn more about it you can get 'The Elegant Universe' by Brian Green. Its a great introduction to string theory. Also you can do a google video search for 'The Elegant Universe' and watch the Nova/PBS documentaries hosted by Brian Green. There should be three but the third one seems to have been taken down.
- AndrewLZ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3yep you are correct, both of you
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3well I agree that this guy's video is crap.
But just because you can't touch and hold things that are 2-dimensional doesn't mean "the second dimension doesn't exist". you can't really talk about "the" x-dimension first of all, and secondly various things "are" 2-dimensional that you regularly interact with. Your field of vision for example, is 2-dimensional (technically a bit more, since you get two of them; but it's still not truly 3-dimensional). Various fields and very "real" boundary layers in physics truly are 2-dimensional. I remember reading at some point about physicists being able to create 2-dimensional "virtual particles" using the boundaries of electromagnetic fields; they behaved for all practical purposes like genuine real world particles, only in 2-dimensions. I wish i remembered where i read about that, it was truly fascinating research. -
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