No, not the Fifth Element! :P

Actually, what I'm talking about - the theorized existence of a fifth dimension, other than the other 4 (spacetime) - was hypothesized by Einstein.

I'm wondering what it actually is...like, our first is length, second is width, third is depth, fourth is time, fifth is ____. My guess, is it's density.

isn't density just a combination of the other dimensions?? i always pictured another dimension as being something completely unlike anything we have yet imagined... which is why we haven't discovered it yet!!

Well, we can think of length, mass and time as different physical properties, and thus different dimensions, if we want. The second dimension gives us area, let's say fifth dimension is mass...does this make density a sixth dimension? Or, let's just ignore density and call the fifth dimension mass; that allows for the gravitational properties of out universe. Dimensions should be plottable in scalars, not vectors.

As I recall, Einstein was influenced by Reimann's hypothesis that all forces were geometric in nature..

For instance, Reimann proposed that if you crumpled up a sheet of paper, a Flatlander living on that 2D sheet would never notice that the sheet was crumpled
but would be able to feel the crumpling as some stress...just as we do when we
accelerate while running...

It was either Kaluza or Klein ( I forget which at the moment ) that sent a letter to
Einstein showing how viewing things from a greater number of dimensions enabled
one to see the lesser numbered dimensions easier than those who are confined to it...This was in agreement with Reimann.

Anyway, when he did some math from a 5 dimensional aspect, Maxwell's equations
popped out and Einstein concluded that the 5th dimension described electromagnetism....Something a 5 dimensional being could easily detect just as
we can detect the crumpled up sheet of paper that the Flatlander can't see but can
only feel..

Einstein felt all of the forces were geometric...gravity, EM, the strong force, and the
weak force...He felt each has its own dimension..

blueshift

Gravity is a weak force compared with nuclear and electromagnetic force. Could that be because gravity is oriented in the fifth dimension so we only feel a fraction of its effect, whereas the other forces are wholly in normal space so we get the full effect?

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One can posit parameters that are non-dimensional in either spacelike or timelike manifestations. It seems more simple (Occamlike) to put both mass and charge in a set of non-dimensional parameters independent of but affectable by space and time (unlike as posited in the Shmoo field guess).

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shouldn't time be the first dimension and not the fourth?

Weren't there only more dimensions at subatomic level? More dimensions could be the cause of the strange "spin 1/2" of some particles. I also think Sp!ke has a point, didn't think of more dimensions to explain the relatively weak force of gravity.

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"He who asks is stupid for five minutes. He who doesn't will remain stupid his whole life"

Instead of saying space is three dimensions, let's say width and depth are not dimensions...so we have length, mass, E/M, time, and the hadronic dimension. That's a five-count.

Gravity is the curvature of spacetime..it is in all dimensions..yet it is weak.
Therefore, we will not likely detect gravitons in these 3 dimensions..Instead,we will
likely detect them leaking into our 3 dimensional world from smaller,hypothetical curled up 2
dimensional spaces..Density of gravitons would be greater in a 2 dimensional world
since there would not be a 1/r^2 law there..

A rarer possibility is a graviton leaking from here into 4 dimensional space, detected in particle accelerators by seeing some sub atomic tracks of gravitons
disappear in some spreading fashion...and that can't be realized until we first can
detect graviton tracks to begin with..

Experiments are being done at Fermilab by Joe Lykken there to detect other dimensions..I attended a lecture there last May..

They feel pretty sure that no 4th dimensional world exists because leakage should be easily detected just one dimension away..Therefore, they feel the greater dimensional world is likely at least two higher in number than we are...

blueshift

Based on that,why can't we assume our galaxy is near the center of the universe, due to its age?
Also, blueshift, what do force carriers have to do with dimensions? In my book, absolutely nothing. So, is there a carrier for length?

Can we assume that gravity exists in the time dimension?

Starlab,


Gravitons do have to do with extrta dimensions because they exist in all dimensions..This doesn't mean that all other bosons must exist in all dimensions..

All dimensions should require the existence of gravity..they are a part of spacetime curvature and spacetime curvature is what defines gravity.

Yet, gravity is still the least understood..We've detected all the other bosons
( except for the hypothetical Higgs ) and may even find out that gravity does not
exist in these 3 dimensions..It may be curled up in other dimensions that surround us and, for some reason, respond to spacetime and mass in a manner
presently unknown to us...It may explain the effects we measure and call Dark
Matter..

Our galaxy is not near the center of the universe..There is no center of the
universe that is by itself..very piece of the universe was once all together if the
inflationary model of the BB holds up..

I think you may be referring to gravity's existence in "spacetime"...rather than
"time dimension" ..The answer would be yes...

But it cannot be ruled out that other time dimensions exist..with the particular
time dimension associated with our existence decoupling into existence just as
the forces are theorized to have done with the cooling of the universe...

We don't presently measure any decay of protons and do measure decay rates
of other subparticles..Neutrons decay quite quickly when they are unattached to
any nucleus or can last by degeneracy in a neutron star or having a pion being
a mediator between it ( the neutron ) and a proton in a nucleus.

In another time dimension neutrons may take on the same decay characteristics
that protons do in this 3D existence while protons decay rapidly..Helium stars would dominate there..

In another time dimension the weak force would not exist if its decay characteristics were like a proton's...No fusion could take place...A still born universe would be the result..

Other possibilities exist but there is no need to list them all..

blueshift

could we talk about dominate behaviours of matter at different scales?

we were pretty much flatlanders till we discovered we where on a sphere. at a certain point spheres dominate from pluto to hypergiant stars, the spherical dominance continues only in globular clusters and elliptical galaxies, with the spiral dominant, then the filimentry tangle of the Lyman forest at the superstructures of the universe.

Unless you buy this weeks flavour of the shape of the universe being a lumpy ball.

The dominant form in otherwise gravity weak enviroments.

I have been browsing a book at the moment called Universal Foam. In it, the quantum level where matter seemingly fluctuates between the states of energy and matter, that this relm, is again dominated by the fillimentary or foam structure, another gravity weak enviroment or a symetry between the em weak force and gravity at micro and macro dimensions?

The dominance of spirals and spheres at the galactic level only accounts for irregular galaxies in that they fall below the spiral dimensions minium gravity requirement of mass.

The sphere, with it's minimum surface area for maxium capacity of mass/density, a recurring tendency to revert to one dimension, a minimal point.

:unsure:

if so, I think there would be the potential for a multiplitciy of time dimensions, which exist at the quantum level, two basic levels are easily Identifiable, fast and slow, the motion at scale may also turn that one out by suggesting that time as a dimension increase and decreases proportianally to scale, the rotation of the Milky Way (250 million years +) and the rotation of water down a drain.

deep.

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zepher46,

At the moment one thing needs to be brought up here..

The ancients NEVER thought the world was flat..That is a misnomer..left over by 19th century political propaganda...Simple experiments disproved that thousands of years ago...The ancients were only confused ( not all of them ) by motion..Who is going around who?

The reason that things are round is to minimize surface area and enough matter exists to where gravity can force a shape that electrical forces might not wish to
abide by...That is why humans and some asteroids can look as odd shaped..

Look up Lee Smolin's " Quantum Loop Gravity"...It's a good read about quantizsed
spacetime..


blueshift

Hi Ya'll

The Fifth Dimension was a great soul group from the 70's.

I'd just like to mention at his point that the latest theory (called "Superstring") is mentioning 11 dimensions. I refer you to Brian Greene's book "The Elegant Universe"
That theory is far from proven, nor will it be anytime soon, but it shows promises.

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Marc

Non illigitamus carborundum!

String theory/M-theory will amount to very little. For example, it appears to contain a theory of gravity, yet is not a consistent quantum theory of gravity. The divergent series is speculated to be finite unlike the quantization of General Reltivity. Other than predicting the magnitude of the cosmological constant should be larger, no other useful predictions have been made. Experimentation is literally out of the question even if string theorists could conduct such an experiment, they could only speculate at best what it is they are observing. Claims of replacing the Standard Model remain unfounded as no experimental evidence or mathematical proof has been forthcoming.

It will probably be a passing fad soon to be shelved... hopefully.

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Physicists probe the fifth dimension

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13070896/

The idea of the 4-D of space came out of the early to mid-19th Century when some geometry experts began to speculate about “what if there is a 4th dimension of space?”, even though there was no evidence of any 4th dimension of space. They just enjoyed speculating about it and making up mathematical equations about it.

Look up Beltrami’s speculative 1868 essay about it, “Teoria fondamentale degli spazî di curvatura costante”, pages 406-429:
http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseu...a&O=NUMM-99432

See Cayley’s 1883 fanciful article about 2 dimensional beings living on the surface of a sphere, pages 177-188:
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-b...ABR0102-0159-5

And his 1884 paper, here, pages 220-238:
http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/...S3153.0012.001

And Richard Proctor’s 1884 “Dream Space” ridicule of the concept, pages 228-234:
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-b...ABR0102-0160-6

And A. Abbott’s 1884 fairy tale satire about it:
http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/eaa/FL.HTM

See Hastings Berkeley’s ridicule of this nonsense in 1910, in “Mysticism in Modern Mathematics”, see page 213:
http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/...S8341.0001.001

String-theorists posit 11 extra dimensions. New-Agers say there are 7 (the purported "astral planes.") Why can't these two camps talk to each other and reach an agreement? Are there 7 or 11 extra dimensions?

Let's just compromise and make it 9

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Spike
:)

But seriously, the string theory has a reason for proposing the extra dimensions, the new-agers are non-scientific therefore not relevant. So the only question really is whether string theory (or M-theory) is correct.

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Spike
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Since when is relevance relevant? If there are extra dimensions, then the New-Agers are right, and they beat Sting/M-theorists to the punch , no matter how non-scientific or irrelevant you judge NAs to be.

It all depends on why they (the NAs) proposed the extra dimensions and what they think they are. There's a world of difference between the 11 infinitessimally small, curled up dimensions of science, and the 7 astral planes of New-Age thinking that do nothing to explain the quantum world or contribute to a grand unified theory.

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