Try to Wrap Your Head Around This New Big Bang Theory Idea

[Maze1125]

The last scenario there is the equivalent of an infinite universe doubling in size. The universe, as a whole, is still infinite but everything inside it is twice as far apart as it was before.

I think your lack of ability to wrap your head around infinite has failed you too.

Something which is infinite cannot double in size, it's infinite, there are no boundries, no limits to it. If you try to double it then nothing happens.

A divide by zero doesn't become any larger if you multiply it by two.

You might want to go back and read the second part of what you quoted there, because that's the explanation of how doubling works in infinite spaces. The fact you assume it must work in the same way as finite spaces is not my failing.

 

[insanelich]

This assumes our universe is finite. An assumption no more or less valid than assuming it's infinite. We just don't know. (yet)

While the evidence hasn't reached a point of certainty yet, it all points towards finite, so it's a more valid assumption than infinite.

The simple fact that we know it's expanding also definitely points towards finite. Since if it was infinite, continuing expansion would be a nonsensical idea.

We do know however that it is much larger than the observable universe.

No, we know the observable universe is expanding.

Which leaves with us with precisely zero data to work on.

Either the universe is infinite, or it isn't, and either answer is too complex for humanity to be capable of ever understanding it.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

Um...wait a second.

If I accept this hypothesis as plausible I'm left with a number of questions:

1: Where did the massive amount of matter and energy that exist in our universe come from? Dimensional wrapping doesn't really explain this, as far as I know, and I'm not buying the idea that a four dimensional star going nova would emit enough matter and energy to fill our universe.

The answer to this remains as it has been throughout the history of the big bang theory. We don't know. Regardless of the idea of four dimensional wrapping, we still don't know where matter and energy come from. Some propose that asking what was before the big bang is a lost cause, since it is essentially ask what was before time. What caused causality. My question is, how does this work from the perspective of spacetime? I mean, as I understood it time was inexorably linked to the other dimensions, thus the effect of gravity and speed on all of them as a whole.

 

[FalloutJack]

While it's definitely interesting, I agree with the "passing the buck" comment.

And I really wonder what a fourth "spatial" dimension would look like.

Some people have written 4D games. I remember a 4D maze game. Takes half an hour to solve a 3*3*3*3 maze. There's also 4D Rubik's Cube puzzles out there, too.

Captcha: time is an illusion

Where does it get these oddly relevant lines from?

It is impossible to make a game with more dimensions then exist in our reality. Its just illogical to say that 4D games are possible.

Technically, the fourth dimension exists in gaming already if it has events moving forward as time progresses. Time - and therefore, the duration of events within a space OF time - is ever-present.

 

[Maze1125]

My question is, how does this work from the perspective of spacetime? I mean, as I understood it time was inexorably linked to the other dimensions, thus the effect of gravity and speed on all of them as a whole.

This theory doesn't change that. It could be that the 4D universe has different rules to our own, or it could be that it has 4D space and so 5D space-time.

It is impossible to make a game with more dimensions then exist in our reality. Its just illogical to say that 4D games are possible.

It's entirely possible to simulate 4 spatial dimensions on a computer. We would be unable to produce a screen that can easily display such a game, and our brains have a very hard time understanding them, but that doesn't mean they can't be made.

 

[FalloutJack]

While it's definitely interesting, I agree with the "passing the buck" comment.

And I really wonder what a fourth "spatial" dimension would look like.

Some people have written 4D games. I remember a 4D maze game. Takes half an hour to solve a 3*3*3*3 maze. There's also 4D Rubik's Cube puzzles out there, too.

Captcha: time is an illusion

Where does it get these oddly relevant lines from?

It is impossible to make a game with more dimensions then exist in our reality. Its just illogical to say that 4D games are possible.

Technically, the fourth dimension exists in gaming already if it has events moving forward as time progresses. Time - and therefore, the duration of events within a space OF time - is ever-present.

Time is not a dimension, else in real life, we would already be 4D, as time exists here.

In that the first three dimensions are a movement, so is time as a progression of the state of matter and energy. It's a dimension of limited view and movement, but it is definitely a dimension. Like taking a step in the right direction, it is an action of beginning, middle, and end, and the first three would meaningless without it.

 

[alj]

Some people have written 4D games. I remember a 4D maze game. Takes half an hour to solve a 3*3*3*3 maze. There's also 4D Rubik's Cube puzzles out there, too.

how can a 4D rubik's cube exist in a 3D universe ?

It is interesting to ponder but unforgettably it is extremely unlikely that we will ever know.

While it's definitely interesting, I agree with the "passing the buck" comment.

And I really wonder what a fourth "spatial" dimension would look like.

I also wonder what it would look like or even if someone who evolved in a 3D universe could comprehend it.

 

[Pyrian]

It is impossible to make a game with more dimensions then exist in our reality. Its just illogical to say that 4D games are possible.

It's entirely possible to simulate 4 spatial dimensions on a computer. We would be unable to produce a screen that can easily display such a game, and our brains have a very hard time understanding them, but that doesn't mean they can't be made.

Some people have written 4D games. I remember a 4D maze game. Takes half an hour to solve a 3*3*3*3 maze. There's also 4D Rubik's Cube puzzles out there, too.

how can a 4D rubik's cube exist in a 3D universe ?

A real 4D Rubik's cube cannot exist in 3 spatial dimensions, but it can be simulated in binary without difficulty. Thus, 4D games are entirely possible to create (and indeed almost trivial, aside from the whole "comprehensible user interface" issue), because video games are simulations rather than real objects (I mean, they are real patterns, but the things they're simulating are not).

One of the mathematical oddities is actually how extremely simple it is. Let's take range. You want to know how far apart two objects in your game world are. Let's see what that looks like in various numbers of spatial dimensions:

1: SQRRT(X*X)
2: SQRRT(X*X + Y*Y)
3: SQRRT(X*X + Y*Y + Z*Z)
4: SQRRT(X*X + Y*Y + Z*Z + A*A)
5: SQRRT(X*X + Y*Y + Z*Z + A*A + B*B)

Etc... One of the reasons why physicists are so quick to reach for the "extra dimensions" toolbox is that there's really very little that's mathematically special about 3 dimensions in particular. The jumps from 2 to 3, from 3 to 4, and from 4 to 5, and so on, are all basically the same.

 

[giles]

Etc... One of the reasons why physicists are so quick to reach for the "extra dimensions" toolbox is that there's really very little that's mathematically special about 3 dimensions in particular. The jumps from 2 to 3, from 3 to 4, and from 4 to 5, and so on, are all basically the same.

Not entirely true. It's true that you can easily tweak the maths to allow for d dimensions, but in the advanced theories you find special results.
In both Differential Geometry (<->General Relativity) and Quantum Field Theory (QFT), one finds special results for four (space-time) dimensions (i.e. "the real world"). Although I forgot what exactly it was in 4 dimensions that was special in differential geometry... something that was unique in a manifold of dimension d=/=4 but had inifinite solutions for d=4 I think...
In QFT one finds many integrals diverge only for d=4. One of my favourite professors (in QCD) once said that 4 is somehow the "strangest" number of space-time dimensions, but it just so happens to be ours.

 

[Pyrian]

...really very little...

Not entirely true.

I swear, this happens every single time I post something along these lines. XD I know there are exceptions and it's not entirely true. That's why I wrote "very little" as opposed to, say, "none".

 

[Maze1125]

Something which is infinite cannot double in size, it's infinite, there are no boundries, no limits to it. If you try to double it then nothing happens.

A divide by zero doesn't become any larger if you multiply it by two.

Dividing by zero doesn't give infinity, it's undefined. There are different classes of infinity: some are 'bigger' than others.

That depends on the number system you're using.
In many number systems dividing by 0 does equal infinity and, in others, dividing by 0 can yield finite results.

Time is not a dimension, else in real life, we would already be 4D, as time exists here.

Time isn't a spatial dimension. That doesn't mean it isn't a dimension.

 

[Olrod]

This "news" is almost a year old.

http://www.nature.com/news/did-a-hyper-black-hole-spawn-the-universe-1.13743

But then, ScienceDaily has never been very good with keeping up-to-date.

 

[Frankster]

I enjoy the idea of our galaxy coming from the regurgitation of matter from another galaxy of a higher dimension, leads to the nice idea that that galaxy could then origin from another galaxy with 5 dimensions or that black holes here can birth 2d galaxies.

Dunno how many dimensions you can reach but guess this would make our universe either one of the younglings or a middle child?

 

[Maze1125]

Could you give me an example or two?

The Riemann Sphere [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_sphere] is a number system where dividing by 0 gives infinity. While using modular arithmetic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_arithmetic] mod 1 gives a number system where dividing by 0 gives 1 as a result.

 

[Cerebrawl]

As a sidenote: it's often said that our universe has 3 or 4 dimensions, wether you consider time or not. But it has at least one more(not even hypothetically, but verified), the 5th dimension being the curvature of space itself, as created by gravity wells.