I've discovered the 4th Dimension! (seriously)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So, the other day, I was working on a problem. It was a very simple problem. I had to deal with projectile motion. To simplify things, let’s say someone throws a stone off a cliff with height ‘y’ at an intial angle ‘theta’, with initial velocity ‘v’. The path of the stone will take the form of a parabola assumeing this cliff is on earth and -9.8 m/s^2 is gravity. Well, one needs to find how far in the ‘x’ direction said stone travels, what it’s max velocity will be, what the max height will be, how long is the stone in the air, etc.

This is all very straight forward, cut and dry. Well, working out the distance with my TI Voyage 200, the quadratic gives you two answers, this case a positive and a negative. Basically where the stone hits the ‘x-axis’. Since the stone was thrown from the left to the right, and I am using righthand axes, the positive answer is the correct answer. Common sense, right?

Then it hit me , this negative value is the fourth dimension represented on a 2-dimensional plane. Please, allow me to explain…

We see everything in 3 dimensions. For the 1st and 2nd dimensions, we can easily represent those on paper. The 4th dimension is intangible; something we can’t see, on paper or in real time. (Time here is a factor in 4-d, but it is not part of it. But, without time, there is no 4-d) So, for the 4th dimension…

The negative value of the distance of the stone is where the stone would have originated from on the x-axis had the stone been thrown from the x-axis. But it wasn’t. The stone was thrown from a height of ‘y’. So, the path that the stone wouldn’t take, but that would fit the path of the stone is the 4th dimension. The 4th dimension is what would have been but wasn’t. Almost like inverted time travel.

With this model of 4-d in mind, it can now be applied to practical explanation: Events that would have happened leading to 3-d events that did happen, but never were.

…More to come on this shortly…

2

you forgot to carry the 1. sorry.

3

I fail to see how the negative answer would be the 4th dimension. The assigning of t=0 is arbitrary. I could say that I through the rock at t=40 seconds since I was waiting for another part of the machine to give me the rock, which took 40 seconds. Or I could have thrown the rock at t=-180 seconds as in I threw the rock 3 minutes ago.

I await further proof of the existence of th 4th dimension so that I can finish the design of my time traveling machine.

4

It’s not where you start that matters, it is where it should have/could have been but wasn’t that does…

5

I’m sorry you’re not going to discover anything fundamental about the universe from a simple mechanics problem. The negative value T value merely reflects were the stone would of been had it been following the same tradjectory, the choice of t=0 is arbitary. The fact that it was thrown for y means that it needs another equation to govern it’s motion before t=0.

6

You see, it’s not the mechanics of it. It is the idea of where the stone would have come from: the path not chosen. The 4th Dimension is a philosophical component. One that exists only in thought and idea. That is why it is not viewable or tangible.

7

It’s already established that the fourth dimension is time.
Maybe you’ve discovered the Fifth Dimension…nope, forgot about Up, Up and Away!

8

Sorry Deep Throat. If you keep pushing your point you will crash and burn.

You haven’t “discovered” D4. You have stumbled across “ago”. Deep concept I know, but we only experience time in one direction (for some strange reason). Negative time when it comes to kinematics equations can be easily interpreted as time before the clock started.
What I don’t get is why you keep referring to the fourth dimension (as if there was only one possibility). Mathematicians routinely solve problems using hundreds or even thousands of dimensions. It is true that our human experiences are often modelled using three isomorphic spatial dimensions and one dimension of time (which we experience somewhat differently). To suggest that this is the only way of modelling the physical world would be an error. Some physical problems require four or more spatial dimensions for their solution (enter Einstien). Other problems require fractions of a dimension to model them accurately (consider fractal geometry and clouds of 2.0613 dimensions). The point is that all dimensions exist only in thought and idea. They just happen to be useful to describe our world and form models for solving problems. The number of dimensions you use depends on the problem being solved.
Just because you stumbled across a negative solution to a kinematics equation doesn’t require you to employ additional dimensions. (The problem you describe only uses two anyway – x and y.) If you framed your problem using x, y, z, and w as well as time, then you would be using four dimensions. But this would in most cases be unnecessarily complex. The concept of time past and time future is a whole lot easier to cope with.

If you are still struggling with any paradoxes after reading this, just remember that your kinemtics equation assumes the only force acting is gravity and will solve a trajectory for that special case. If you want to consider a particular throwing force existing for a short time at t=0 then you can easily do it and you will avoid getting a negative solution for time.

9

This is the dawning of the Age of A Deep Throater
the Age of A Deep Throater…
A DEEP THROATER!

::runs away::

10

I thought we were up to eleven??

:confused:

11

I thought we already have a Fourth Dimension. It’s called Time.

12

Yes, but time is not a fourth spatial dimension.

13

Yes time is the fourth dimension of space-time, not space. Another thing about 4 spatial dimensions is that the mechanics of the universe work differently (for example no stable orbits).

A 4th spatial dimension has been theorized, though for reasons staed above it must be radically different from the other three, it appears in a certain cosmology.

14

Speak for yourself, human.

Am I the only person a little disturbed to see a thread titled “I’ve discovered the 4th dimension” started by a poster named “Deep Throat”?

15

OMG. Hiryuu?!