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Math Science

Six-Dimensional Space-Time Theory 330

Posted by kdawson from the let's-do-the-twistor dept.
eldavojohn writes "PhysOrg is covering an interesting year-old paper that proposes an alternative six-dimensional theory of space and time. George Sparling's proposition, based on Einstein's general relativity and Elie Cartan's triality, is a twistor space (which I've only read of in Roger Penrose's latest work). The gist is that space-time is modeled not by four dimensions but by six, and that the extra two dimensions are time-like. Sparling is hoping that tests from the Large Hadron Collider will help prove his theory. The paper is heavy but the PhysOrg article summarizes it nicely."
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Six-Dimensional Space-Time Theory More

Six-Dimensional Space-Time Theory

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  • No humsn has a right to think wrong! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @11:16PM (#18777925)
    Time is four-dimensional, so there are 7 dimensions! So sayeth the TimeCube [timecube.com]!

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Dun Malg ( 230075 )

      Time is four-dimensional, so there are 7 dimensions! So sayeth the TimeCube [timecube.com]!

      Come on, you idiot mods! If ever there was an appropriate time to bring up timecube.com, this is it. Is it that it's the first post? Use your brain and actually critically examine the content of a post before modding, please. This isn't a GNAA troll, he didn't once say "frist post", "fust poost", or "frost piss" anywhere in the message body, and the TimeCube guy is a fairly old and well known example of what happens when you let a billion people put whatever they like on the internet.

    • Time is four-dimensional, so there are 7 dimensions! So sayeth the TimeCube!
      Wouldn't TimeCube theory predict three dimensions of time rather than four, just as the scientists discovered?

      (I tried to look it up at the TimeCube page, but those who clicked the link will understand why I had trouble finding it.)

      • Re: No humsn has a right to think wrong! (Score:5, Informative)

        by porl ( 932021 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @02:29AM (#18778915)
        speaking as someone who *has* perused that wonderful piece of internet real estate, i can say quite confidently that the *only* thing that his 'theories' predict is that his 'theories' are important for predicting things. apparently his theories can be used to figure out how to cure cancer and stop violence too, but in his self acknowledged infinite wisdom he hasn't deemed it appropriate to tell us how yet. still, its fun for a laugh for a while :)

        for those who are still interested in such things, another site: fixedearth.com [fixedearth.com] is similar, although it seems this guy has at least *tried* to do some research.

      • Einstein he may not be, but the author of the Time Cube holds some great patents

        • * U.S. Patent 3,974,591 Chum dispensing attachment for fishing rigs, granted 1976.
        • * U.S. Patent 4,095,365 Bait bucket, granted 1978.
        • * U.S. Patent 4,095,793 Marble game resembling golf, granted 1978.
        • * U.S. Patent 4,707,869 Swim through safety division line for pools, granted 1987.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Ray [wikipedia.org]

  • According to the paper... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Shihar ( 153932 ) on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @11:20PM (#18777945)
    I was reading the paper on this theory. I found this part VERY interesting. It is like my whole life has meaning now.

    Cubicism, Not group theory.
    If ignorant of the almighty
    Time Cube Creation Truth,
    you deserve to be killed.
    Killing you is not immoral -
    but justified to save life on
    Earth for future generations.
    Academic taught singularity
    within universe of opposites,
    has lobotomized your mind.
    You are Enslaved by Word -
    no whip or shackle required.
    You do not have the freedom
    to discuss/debate Time Cube.
    Academia destroys your mind
    by suppressing opposite view.
    God equals self masturbation
    of mind - for opposites create.
    You are educated singularities.
    YOU DESERVE DEATH -
    FOR SINGULARITY EVIL
    in the Universe of Opposites.
    No God Can Make Himself
    as singularity is death, not life.
    Planets nor human are entities
    as they equal Zero Opposites.
    You are educated singularity
    stupid and evil, unfit for life
    in the Universe of Opposites.

    • Missing something. . . (Score:5, Funny)

      by Fantastic Lad ( 198284 ) on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @11:52PM (#18778141)
      I think this passage loses its full meaning when not presented in the original 48pt orange text on fluorescent green animated gif background.

      There's, "Controversial and Open to Alternative Explanations", and then there's, "Insanity".

      Spelling and language skills tend to decay the further toward the "Insanity" end of the spectrum one travels. Interestingly, I've read Right Wing screeds which don't fare much better in the language department. Learn to discern.


      -FL

  • Hot damn! Zee Sixth Dimension!

    I bet you'll never guess which movie that came from (googling is cheating!)

  • Heavy paper. (Score:5, Funny)

    by chris_eineke ( 634570 ) on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @11:21PM (#18777951) Homepage Journal
    My god, it's full of time!

  • I'm ridin' spinors (Score:4, Funny)

    by tepples ( 727027 ) <tepplesNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @11:21PM (#18777953) Homepage Journal

    Sparling wrote:

    In physics, the idea of a spinor stems from the finding that spectral lines of atoms seem to behave as if the angular momentum of the particles radiating photons was in half-integral units of the quantized spin (whose size is determined by Planck's constant). This was fully explained by Dirac's famous theory of the electron, which led him to successfully predict the existence of the positron.

    Or as Three 6 Mafia put it: "I'm ridin' spinors, I'm ridin' spinors, they don't stop..." [ytmnd.com]

  • The Dig (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Neillparatzo ( 530968 ) on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @11:26PM (#18777979)
    Wasn't 6-dimensional space-time covered in the LucasArts adventure game, The Dig?

    (watch me get modded down for mentioning Dig)

  • 640k dimesions are enough! (Score:4, Funny)

    by EmbeddedJanitor ( 597831 ) on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @11:27PM (#18777987)
    I just want to set an upper limit before everyone goes crazy.

    • Jeez, I always thought there were Gigs and Gigs (billions and billions)....

      -InnerWeb

    • Re:640k dimesions are enough! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Walt Dismal ( 534799 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @01:14AM (#18778577)
      By god, when I were a lad we only had three dimensions, and we LIKED it! You modern kids with yer artsy fartsy ponsy 6 dimensions! All we need was three, and we managed to build steam locomotives and conquer the West! You ain't never satisfied, is you? And strings -- my great-aunt's ass. If particles were good enough for Einstein, they should be good enough fer the likes of you! Hey now, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and all he had were wormy biscuits. Bah. Ya poofters.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by mysticgoat ( 582871 )

      Heinlein has already demonstrated that the ancients had established the upper limit. It is approximately 1.0314E+28 dimensions. This is
      (6 raised to the 6th power) raised to the 6th power
      which can be expressed as 6**6**6 or 6^6^6.

      Note that the ancient symbol denoting exponentiation was more similar to today's typographer's "enspace" than any other symbol in current usage. This has led to the unfortunate confusion of the large number 6^6^6 with the much smaller quantity 666. All this is thoroughly expla

  • Whew! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @11:38PM (#18778061)
    I'm glad they're time-like dimentions! I'd hate to find out they're orthogonal directions, and suddenly have to worry about all my organs spilling out into the v and w dimensions. Or start filling a glass with water, only to discover I have to keep pouring until I had 1/8pi*r^4*height units of water. It'd just be inconvenient!

    Speaking of which, anyone interested in some rather funny dimensional hijinks, you might want to check out Flatland the classic book [gutenberg.org], or one of the movies [flatlandthefilm.com] being made about the story.

    Ryan Fenton
  • I only read those dimension articles on Wikipedia because of the pretty animated gifs.

  • Number of the Beast (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) * on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @11:44PM (#18778099)
    Hmm 6 dimensions, 3 of space and 3 of time...

    Definately sounds like Jacob Burrough's theory (from the book by R A Heinlein)

  • Well, that's just fantastic (Score:5, Funny)

    by Manchot ( 847225 ) on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @11:45PM (#18778101)
    Great, not only do we have to figure out how to travel through time, but now we also have to figure out how to travel through uime and vime!

  • Consequences of three dimensional time? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SlowMovingTarget ( 550823 ) on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @11:47PM (#18778105) Homepage

    I read the article, but I really don't understand the consequences of the theory. What would it mean for there to be more than one time dimension?

    I'll have to settle for completely off-the-cuff, wild speculation: Could that help explain human temporal perception (you can "feel" time slow down or time flies by when having fun)? Can our consciousness span more or less of these other dimensions of time at need? Would this help explain the apparent causality problem of neuromuscular control (humans seem able to send the neural command to catch the ball before our senses could have delivered the signal that it should be caught)?

    Could the existence of extra time dimensions have implications regarding the existence of free will?

    How does this relate to the "one-graviton level" for quantum collapse / observation (if at all)?

    As you can see, I'm just an amateur toying with the Duplo blocks of popularized physics, but I still find the notion fascinating.

    • ...quoth Kermit. I'd say it's more likely your brain is compressing detail when time seems to fly by quickly (no point in storing repetitive detail, is there?) and analyzing potential means of escape in high-res when time seems to drag.

      Or to put it succinctly, time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana (thanks Noam).

      • Or to put it succinctly, time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana (thanks Noam).

        Noam?

        I think that remark was originally Marxist. Groucho Marxist.

    • Re:Consequences of three dimensional time? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Coryoth ( 254751 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @12:12AM (#18778259) Homepage Journal

      I read the article, but I really don't understand the consequences of the theory. What would it mean for there to be more than one time dimension?
      That's really not at all clear. They aren't so much extra "time" dimensions as in extra directions of time, as extra time-like dimensions which has a specific meaning that refers to how they behave in calculating space-time distances. Ultimately they are the product of a purely mathematical model and, unless the author has something more in mind than is presented in the paper, exactly what sort of physical interpretation they might have is utterly unclear.

      Of course mathematical models sometimes help us frame ideas about physical reality that we have trouble otherwise perceiving. Lorentz and Poincare developed much of the mathematics of special relativity as a mathematical model of electrodynamics using an "apparent time" that they viewed as an artificial mathematical construct necessary to make the model work. Einstein provided the insight that this "artificial" time was actually a real effect by making a conceptual shift about what simultaneity means, and special relativity was born.

      For now the extra time-like dimensions are simply artificial creations of a mathematical model, we still await an insight to explain how they fit in with our own pereceptions of the universe.

      • Re:Consequences of three dimensional time? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by The_Wilschon ( 782534 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @01:22AM (#18778619) Homepage

        They aren't so much extra "time" dimensions as in extra directions of time, as extra time-like dimensions which has a specific meaning that refers to how they behave in calculating space-time distances.
        Yes. Also, IIRC, theories with multiple timelike dimensions tend to be unstable, leading to the collapse of all but one timelike dimension, so that the total length of space in the extra timelike directions is very small. This would tend to lead to a physical interpretation in which the extra timelike dimensions matter very very little, especially on macroscopic scales.

        Of course, I'm an experimentalist, not a theorist, so I'm really just talking out of my elbow here.
      • Well, what about a slight point of view shift instead ?
        Do you ever think of yourself "well, this object is 3m away on the x axis, 4m away of the y axis, and 5 m away on the z axis" ? Or do you just think to yourself "this object is about 7m away" ? And then, your other senses tell you what direction the object is ?
        So why assume whatever it is we call "time" is actually time, when instead it could be just as well the "time-like total distance", and we just lack the sensory equipment to differentiate (or orie
        • You think "that object is about 7 meters away due West". What would be the equivalent for that in time?

          And actually the 'distance' between two objects in our 4 dimensional space is distance = x + y + z - ct

          where t is the time it takes light to travel to that point.

          Also on your last point, there aren't any scientifically confirmed cases of anything supernatural, so there's nothing that needs explaining.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
      What this means for free will depends on how things exist within the time dimension, I'd think. Either things move through time like they move through space (i.e. when they move somewhere they're no longer at their old position which would require some kind of metatime and of course make time travel impossible since you'd land somewhere with nothing in it) or they exist at each point in time at the same "time" which would preclude free will since the whole universe is mapped out from creation to destruction

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Coryoth ( 254751 )

        Either things move through time like they move through space (i.e. when they move somewhere they're no longer at their old position which would require some kind of metatime

        Things don't "move through space" in a space-time model, rather they trace out a curve through the comined 4-dimensional space-time (and by trace, I mean "exist as", there is no progression here). In the 6-dimensional version presumably it would simply be a curve in this 6-space. There is no need to invoke a "meta-time". Indeed, despite our natural intuition that time is some absolute thing that is somehow "outside the universe" marking of its progression, special (and then general) relativity was about fo

        • In the 6-dimensional version presumably it would simply be a curve in this 6-space.

          I'm not sure about this: Conventional movement means that you have a mapping from one-dimensional time to 3-dimensional space, which means that in 4-dimensional spacetime you get a one-dimensional manifold (i.e. a curve). The obvious generalization to three time dimensions would be that you have a mapping from three-dimensional time to three-dimensional space, which in six-dimensional spacetime would result in a three-dimensi

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by x2A ( 858210 )
        "which would preclude free will since the whole universe is mapped out from creation to destruction"

        No it wouldn't, as "you" exist within the system, and so all decisions that you make are still "yours". For example, if I take a 'normal' human being, put them at the edge of a cliff, and ask them to jump, I can predict that they will decide against jumping, before I've even asked them to. So does that mean that they didn't decide to jump just because I already knew they wouldn't? Of cause not, it was still t

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by John Newman ( 444192 )

      Would this help explain the apparent causality problem of neuromuscular control (humans seem able to send the neural command to catch the ball before our senses could have delivered the signal that it should be caught)?

      What "causality problem" are you alluding to? I don't think there's any suggestion of FTL nerve impulses in the neuroscience community. If you just mean the old saw about being able to catch a dollar bill that you drop between your fingers, remember that it doesn't work if someone else does t

      • Re:Consequences of three dimensional time? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by TapeCutter ( 624760 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @01:36AM (#18778681) Journal
        I agree, the brain is constantly predicting the muscle movements that will be required ~0.25 seconds into the "future". The communication lag between hand and eye becomes aparent when you see your keys in the boot as you are closing the lid. Even though you brain screams stop your hand keeps pushing for that split second too long, the prediction was wrong and the brain had no way to cancel the "close the lid" command. The "illusion" of time can also be demonstrated when you are in fear of your life such as during a car accident the driver will often expeience a slow motion effect as their brain goes into hyperdrive looking for a way out.
    • Would this help explain the apparent causality problem of neuromuscular control (humans seem able to send the neural command to catch the ball before our senses could have delivered the signal that it should be caught)?

      What? I have never heard of any causality problems related to human reflexes. There is a measurable delay and no contradiction of fundemental physics in biology like this. I think you might have read one too many flakey new age texts.

    • Re:Consequences of three dimensional time? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thefirelane ( 586885 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @02:01AM (#18778789)
      Hi, I'm not a physicist, and I didn't read the article, but I think I can help you out

      Could that help explain human temporal perception (you can "feel" time slow down or time flies by when having fun)?
      No

      Can our consciousness span more or less of these other dimensions of time at need?
      No

      Would this help explain the apparent causality problem of neuromuscular control (humans seem able to send the neural command to catch the ball before our senses could have delivered the signal that it should be caught)?
      No

      Could the existence of extra time dimensions have implications regarding the existence of free will?
      No

      You're welcome.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Knuckles ( 8964 )
      (humans seem able to send the neural command to catch the ball before our senses could have delivered the signal that it should be caught)

      If you are interested in stuff like this, you will like Zen and the Brain [mit.edu] and Zen-Brain Reflections [mit.edu] by James H. Austin [mit.edu]

    • Game engines may use 5D to do 3D space (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JPMH ( 100614 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @05:59AM (#18779823)
      What would it mean for there to be more than one time dimension?

      The dimensions may not be quite what you think. This paper sounds to me very like technology which is already being used in games engines and robotics applications, eg for lighting models and collision detection.

      The idea is that there are various things that make rotations of objects much nicer to handle than translations. But if you add some extra dimensions, you can turn the translations into rotations. It's to do with conformal projection. Translations on a 2D plane are difficult to handle (at least in the framework of Clifford algebra), but if you map that plane onto the surface of a sphere in 3D, then you can identify the 2D translations with rotations on the surface of the 3D sphere. Similarly, you can exchange 3D translations for rotations in 4D, if you create a new dimension which allows you to have an origin for your rotations which is lifted outside "real" 3D space. It turns out to be nice to be able to do rotations about a point at infinity, too, which you can achieve by doing the same trick to go up to 5D. A consequence is that each no-D point in 3D gets represented by a 2D surface in the 5D, a line gets turned into a 3D hypersurface, etc.

      The nice thing about rotations is that you can do them with spinors, and you can use spinors to rotate lines and planes directly without having to break them down into points. In the 5D system you can also use geometric algebra to compute directly whether and how different hypersurfaces meet, again without having to compute points and normals and things, which is good for collision detection.

      It looks to me that this article is doing pretty much the same trick, turning 4D into 6D, that the geometric algebra people are using turning 3D into 5D.

      Here's a paper [science.uva.nl] from a group at Amsterdam university discussing some of this stuff, using it for a ray-tracing program. See also the previous two papers in the series, here [science.uva.nl]. They've also just got a book out, "Geometric Algebra for Computer Science" [geometricalgebra.net] (links to Amazon etc) [geometricalgebra.net].

      There's also a company called Geomerics [geomerics.com] based in Cambridge in England that has used the technology to develop a new lighting engine, which it has just released for the Unreal platform.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 )
      What would it mean for there to be more than one time dimension?

            It would certainly mean lots of extra funding for scientists who are pushing that hypothesis.

  • Interesting claim (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Coryoth ( 254751 ) on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @11:50PM (#18778127) Homepage Journal
    An interesting claim made in the paper, but not mentioned in the PhysOrg writeup, is that this theory provides a co-ordinate free definition of chaos in spacetime. That is, for usual definitions of a dynamical system being chaotic, there is a preferred time co-ordinate describing the evolution of the system. General relativity, on the other hand, is remarkable because there is no single preferred co-ordinate system; everything works independently of the particular choice of co-ordinates to work in. As far as I can glean from the paper (it is very very dense) they simply define a chaotic system with regard to properties of the Chi operator, and claim that this conforms to the more restricted usual definition. This is far from clear to me -- I'm struggling just to get my head around their definition of Chi, let alone any implications of it -- but it would certainly be very interesting if true.
  • As the field expands, we interpret it as time - but the actual drag on the field is seen as gravity. This makes the four directions left-right, up-down, forward-backward, (and in a twisty spiral that looks like a logarithmic curve, but is really just yet-another-right-angle in the fourth dimension) inward-outward (collapsing-expanding).

    OK - I'm just messing with you. I have no idea - but I looked through a textbook at a UC Berkeley bookstore years ago with that title, with the picture of the logarithmic spiral, and liked the idea.

    ;-)

  • SIX dimensions?!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by DragonHawk ( 21256 ) on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @11:56PM (#18778165) Homepage Journal
    What's that?? *SIX* whole dimensions? Why, when I was starting out, we only had three dimensions, and we liked it that way. Length, width, and height were good enough for us, and they should be good enough for anyone. Why, we sometimes had to work in just *two* dimensions -- *and they were both length*! You didn't hear *us* complaining about relativity or quantum effects. If it can't be expressed in a Newtonian physics, it shouldn't be expressed at all, that's what we said. Pretty soon you'll be inventing time travel and creating causality paradoxes and tearing apart the entire space-time continuum, and *then* where will we be, I ask ya? You young scientists these days, why, you have no idea what proper respect is.

    And get off my lawn!
    • Get off my imaginary axis and get real, you kids!
       

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by joto ( 134244 )
      You had two dimensions? You lucky bastard! We would count ourself lucky if we even had one. "If you need geometry to express it, well that's no bloody use for us poor people, who can't afford that new-fashioned fancy stuff?", we used to say. We used to live inside a 0-dimensional box, at the bottom a lake, 150 of us, working dimensionless shifts in the coal-mine, sharing one bit of gravel between all of us to eat, and when we got home, our mother and father would kill us every night, and dance at our grave.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Eudial ( 590661 )

        You had two dimensions? You lucky bastard! We would count ourself lucky if we even had one. "If you need geometry to express it, well that's no bloody use for us poor people, who can't afford that new-fashioned fancy stuff?", we used to say. We used to live inside a 0-dimensional box, at the bottom a lake, 150 of us, working dimensionless shifts in the coal-mine, sharing one bit of gravel between all of us to eat, and when we got home, our mother and father would kill us every night, and dance at our grave.

  • As usual, Rod [wikipedia.org] predicted this:

    "There is a sixth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area that might be called the Twilight Zone."

  • QFA (Score:4, Funny)

    by CrazyJim1 ( 809850 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @12:23AM (#18778307) Journal
    Consider this analogy: if you take a plate and hold it in one hand horizontally whilst twisting it under your arm backwards through 360 degrees, your arm ends up in the air after one rotation, and it needs another 360 degree rotation to get it back to the beginning," he said.
    I think I saw that happen to a dude on UFC then he tapped out with his remaining arm.

  • Why 3 dimensions of space? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Chuck Chunder ( 21021 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @12:30AM (#18778333) Journal
    Is there a relatively simple explanation of why we think the space we experience is actually the result of 3 distinct "dimensions"?

    Obviously from a practical point of view it is useful for use to measure things using a coordinate system with three sets of perpendicular axes but why do we think that is more than a useful logical construct? Why do we think it tells us that the very nature of the universe really stems from three distinct "dimensions"?

    There doesn't seem to be any real distinction between up/down, left/right, and forward/backward. Couldn't they all be something that is part of one "space" dimension?

    • Re:Why 3 dimensions of space? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Coryoth ( 254751 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @12:57AM (#18778477) Homepage Journal

      Obviously from a practical point of view it is useful for use to measure things using a coordinate system with three sets of perpendicular axes but why do we think that is more than a useful logical construct? Why do we think it tells us that the very nature of the universe really stems from three distinct "dimensions"? There doesn't seem to be any real distinction between up/down, left/right, and forward/backward. Couldn't they all be something that is part of one "space" dimension?
      Well these days physics theories use 4 space-time dimensions. More importantly, with general relativity, we have a co-ordinate free description of the universe: that is, there is no preferred set of co-ordinates; you can use up/down, left,right, forward/backward, and time or radial distance from some origin, azimuth, and elevation, and time, or whatever other system (possibly mixing space and time dimensions) you like. So why do we end up with 3 (or in practice, 4) dimensions? Because regardless of what means you use to develop co-ordinates, you will always require at least (you're free to use more if you like) 3 (or 4 if we want time included) independent pieces of information to describe a location. Ultimately this comes down to the concept of the dimension of a vector space [wikipedia.org], at which point we're dealing with purely mathematical models.
    • Take a look at pure math. Provided that space is continuous, we can model position (in one dimension) as a real number. In two dimensions, we need 2 real numbers. There is no way to use a single real number to pinpoint an arbitrary position in the cartesian plane with continuous axes. Similarly, for three continuous dimensions, you can use no fewer than 3 real numbers to describe an arbitrary position. In jargon, there is no bijection from R to R^3 (reals to reals times reals times reals). This can be

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by joto ( 134244 )

        I'm not familiar with any theory which uses a discrete space, but I would conjecture that it would be much more complicated and difficult to work with. And certainly there isn't any experimental evidence which suggests a discrete space.

        There is quantum theory. Ok, maybe it doesn't "suggest" a discrete space, but it sure as hell made it a lot more likely than it would seem with Newtons universe or relativity theory.

    • Re:Why 3 dimensions of space? (Score:5, Funny)

      by ross.w ( 87751 ) <rwonderley&gmail,com> on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @03:10AM (#18779119) Journal
      Actually, there are 4:

      For this cause, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 3:15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 3:16 that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; 3:17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 3:18 may be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 3:19 and to know Christ's love which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

      Ephesians 3:14-19
  • Having just read http://www.timecube.com/ [timecube.com] for a laugh and then reading the PhysOrg news item, all the references to "ultra-hyperbolic spaces" and rotations read a little too much like Gene Ray's rants to be comfortable. The only thing missing was the obligatory:

    Your 4 dimensional space makes you EVIL! SIX dimensional ultra-hyperbole is absolute but ignored by stupid/evil educators.
  • Without wading through the papers (hey, this is /.) this sounds a lot like Dewey B. Larson's 3-D space/3-D time theories. Mind, I haven't read Larson's stuff since I was in high school (my senior year physics teacher was a fan of his theories.) Maybe he was on to something.
  • Especially in the CS crowd. By dimension they don't actually mean that you can move through that space as you do through your familiar Euclidian space. They just mean that there are 4,6 or whatever independent variables describing the conditions of the system... Ever seen a 6 dimensional array? Whohoo.. So that baseball collection you were organizing is also "6-dimensional".

  • Number of the Beast (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mal-2 ( 675116 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @12:40AM (#18778395) Homepage Journal
    This sounds amazingly like the premise of a Heinlein novel, The Number of the Beast [wikipedia.org], which supposes that there are three dimensions of time as well as three dimensions of space, and that travel is possible on the two axes we normally do not recognize. This allows visiting realities that can be subtly or vastly different from our own, weighted by probability.

    It's not a bad concept, but it does get rather silly when the selected locations include Barsoom, Oz, and the "Future History" realms of Lazarus Long. A bit like the plot in Frank Zappa's "The Adventures of Greggery Peccary", it attempts so much that none of it really comes off right. The main difference is that Zappa intended it that way (and backed it up with interesting, non-repeating music) and I don't think Heinlein did. He did intend it to be campy, but it's way beyond that.

    I am willing to bet he is neither the first nor the last to propose this, but at least I can point out "prior art" where I see it.

    Mal-2
    • Actually, later in the book it was discovered that each of the six dimensions was a space-time dimension, and that any three of the six could act as spacial dimensions and any one of the remaining three could act as a time dimension.

      Or depending on your method of selection, any one of the six acting as a time dimension, and any three of the remaining 5 acting as space dimensions.

      Order of selection, in this case, is not important.
    • Well, it wasn't so much a solid piece of science fiction as a love letter to SF literature, and the fans themselves. Hell, Poul Anderson showed up in full armor in an SCA tourney at the end, the biggest science fiction convention in the history of the Multiperson Pantheistic Solipsistic universe. "Dis Dane could be our arrow".
  • six-dimensional porn!

    *stabs out eyes*

  • Project deadlines may now be met! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Alain Williams ( 2972 ) <addw@phcomp.co.uk> on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @02:16AM (#18778859) Homepage
    Now if only I can learn how to use those 2 extra time dimensions, I might get the extra month that I need to complete the project before it is due tomorrow.

    Great news for project planners everywhere!

    How do we redraw gantt charts to represent these extra dimensions ?
  • Hasn't anyone heard most physicists say that time is an illusion of motion?
  • This was Robert Heinlein's throwaway theory of 3 space and 3 time dimensions in "The Number of the Beast". Just throwing it in before someone brings up some anime with the idea.
  • Can anybody explain this in terms we can understand, like rubber sheets and spinning balls?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by joto ( 134244 )

      Can anybody explain this in terms we can understand, like rubber sheets and spinning balls?

      Personally I would prefer an explanation using marshmallow fishing rods and ringing alarm bells.

  • Yet another hypothesis of Three-Dimensional Time (Score:5, Interesting)

    by iaculus ( 1032214 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @03:31AM (#18779201)
    I've been rather fascinated with Peter Carroll's hypothesis of 6-dimensional space-time for a while now. He has a few dozen articles up at specularium.org

    iirc he suggests that 3-dimensional space is curved in one of the extra time dimensions to form a finite, boundless 4-dimensional hypersphere, and 1-dimensional time is curved in the other extra time dimension to form a finite, boundless 2-dimensional circle.

    He makes some falsifiable predictions based on his theory (from http://specularium.org/index.php?option=com_conten t&task=view&id=26&Itemid=55&Itemid=1 [specularium.org] ):

    9. Predictions from the Hyperwarp 6D model

    a) No more generations of particles can exist. (Subject only to falsification)

    b) No Higgs particle exists. (Subject only to falsification)

    c) As it seems that no known natural process except, perhaps, neutron star or black hole collisions could cause a sufficiently large quantity of matter to undergo a sufficient acceleration to produce graviton bosons in detectable quantities, we shall never easily detect gravity waves (subject only to falsification).

    d) The principle of t-axis neutrality does permit the existence of a number of exotic bosons corresponding to configurations such as :

    d-quark/positron, or d-antiquark/electron or any type of quark/antineutrino or antiquark/neutrino

    Within Hyperwarp 6D theory a "leptoquark boson" does not really represent a fifth force of nature, anymore than weak (W-, W+, or Zo) bosons represent anything other than a special case of electromagnetism. See Leptoquarks and Neutron Stars paper.

    e) Spacetime singularities larger than fundamental particles do not exist. The quantisation of particle properties in terms of spacetime curvature implies a quantisation of spacetime itself and the top quark represents the maximum possible curvature at any point.

    f) Neutrinos can annihilate against neutrinos in head on collisions. Antineutrinos can likewise annihilate against antineutrinos. Such collisions could create photon pairs or pairs of neutrinos of other generations. This controversial proposition lies open to experimental confirmation. It may also contribute a solution to the solar neutrino problem.

  • This is not new.. string theory proposes 11 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by plasmacutter ( 901737 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @07:06AM (#18780187)
    string theory proposes 11 dimensions, and while im not quite clear on how they all work, the extra dimensions have been presented on the science channel as a kind of "backstage" or "mechanical room" on which the universe is maintained, and that gaining an understanding of the properties of each dimension could lead to the holy grail "grand unification" equation.

    (for those not familiar, the grand unification equation is an extension of the equations/theorems which allow us to convert between electromagnetic and kinetic forces, and would allow us to translate between all 4 major forces by adding gravity and the force which holds atomic nuclei together)

    because of how new string theory is, i dont think there are enough findings to distinguish weather this new hypothesis might be a subset of string theory, though i could be wrong.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by joe user jr ( 230757 )
      String theory still only has one time dimension, whereas this theory proposes three time dimensions, and so is quite different, and not a subset of string theory.

      A 6-D precursor to string theory you might be mistaking this for was called Kaluza-Klein theory, if memory serves.

      One other proponent of three time dimensions, again if I remember correctly, was neo-Gurdjieffian J.G. Bennett, who christened the extra timelike dimensions "eternity" and "hyparxis" in his "The Dramatic Universe".

  • The Dig (Score:3, Interesting)

    by alexgieg ( 948359 ) <alexgieg@gmail.com> on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @09:30AM (#18782093) Homepage
    This made me remember the plot for the LucasArts adventure game "The Dig".

    (Warning: spoiler follows.)

    The aliens there had discovered much time ago the two extra time dimensions, and a way to transition from space-time to 3-time (I don't remember whether this is the in-game name for the concept, but you get the idea). That worked, they discovered that in 3-time they are practically immortal, and as a result the whole alien species transitioned, losing the ability to come back, since there was no one left in space-time to activate the portal. After some centuries in 3-time, however, the aliens perceived it was a mistake, due to their livings losing all meaning since in 3-time nothing changes, ever. In the end, the humans discover this history, reopen the portal, and allow the aliens to come back into standard space-time.

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