2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

Would like others thoughts on this.

2Dimensional man comes accross a circle with a dot inside it. He cant get to the dot because it is impossible for him to get past the circle (we are ignoring the fact that 2D man would fall in half because his digestive tract splits him in two).

3D man comes along, sees a dot inside a circle and just reaches overtop the circle and touches/grabs the dot. To 2D man, this is a miracle.

Now where it gets interesting...

3D man comes accross a ball surrounded by a sphere. He cannot touch/grab the ball since it is impossible for him to get past the sphere.

Along comes 4D man. He sees the ball inside the sphere and takes it. The sphere is no more barrier to him than the circle was to 3D man. To 3D man this is a miracle.

Now 4D man comes accross a sphere surronded by the 4D equivilent of a dot/circle/sphere. To him he cant touch/grab the sphere. But 5D man can easily take the sphere, there is no barrier for him. To 4D man this is a miracle.

Soooo...Is god 4D man?

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

I think you should read Flatland by Abbott. The story is about a 2d character trying to understand a 3d object.

Melch

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

thanks will check it out, my post was based on what i read by stephen hawking.

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

Does 4D man have infinite power wihtin the 3-D realm?

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

Do you have infinite power in the 2D realm?

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

An interesting point of this is that 2d man is able to see a shadow of a 3d object - say a cube. He can see the shadow of this cube in his 2d world, but is unable to comprehend what it is.

If you have a 1 dimensional world (ie, a line), and the only movement is "Left-Right" - then the way to turn that 1D line into a 2d square is to project the sides into the 2nd dimension and join the points. Now you have a 2d square.

Doing that again, you can make this 2d square into a 3d cube, again by projecting the corners into the 3rd dimension , and violla, a cube.

Now - we live in a 3D universe. To make a 4D object, all we do is project the corners of the cube into the 4th dimension (which we understand as much as the 2D Flatland man understands the concept of a 3D cube). BUT..

..in the same way the 3D man can see the shadow projected by a 3D cube, so us 3D citizens can see the "shadow" projected by the 4D equivelent - and it's called a "tesseract" I think, and it's as real a shape as the cube is to the 2D man. Here is what the shadow of a 4D object in 3D space looks like.. http://www.logic-alphabet.net/tesseract.htm

I'm sure someone can do a better job of explaining the 3D/4D type stuff, but it's very interesting if you get into it.

Ringo

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

In Flatland, 3D man has the ability to move up and down vertically, so can literally move into the 2D man. Likewise, 2D man can move horizontally along the 1D man's plane. The 1D man's plane allows for more than one existing entity - the 0D man is a singular entity point, aware only of its own existence, where all others are posited to be the thoughts of another.

The opportunity of another to have more powers than ourselves (i.e. to have another dimension to themselves) is something we might consider as akin to "Godliness". However, the problem exists that if our 3D world is superceeded by a 4D world, then there are theoretical 5D, 6D, 7D... etc worlds. Thus there is a continual sense of "Godliness" until we reach an "InfinityD" world, where every possible dimension of existence is present in each entity.

Ergo, a 4D man may be a 3D man's god, but we would both deify a 5D man, and so on.

Edit - But we would struggle to understand anything with more dimensions than we contain.

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

There are infinite dimensions!

If I take a trillion integrals over a line, I'm going to get a number, right?

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

Don't we live in a 4D world with the 4th dimension being time? We need 4 co-ordinates to describe the position of something (its traditional x,y,z co-ordinates and a fourth co-ordinate to say what time it occupied that state).

Sorry to be nittish but I've only started reading in this forum and have noticed the 3D world reference a lot and wanted to clarify.

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
the way to turn that 1D line into a 2d square is to project the sides into the 2nd dimension and join the points.
Doing that again, you can make this 2d square into a 3d cube, again by projecting the corners into the 3rd dimension , and violla, a cube.

Now - we live in a 3D universe. To make a 4D object, all we do is project the corners of the cube into the 4th dimension

Ringo

[/ QUOTE ]

Check this out if you want to read about N-dimensional cubes.
Hypercubes

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
The sphere is no more barrier to him than the circle was to 3D man. To 3D man this is a miracle.

[/ QUOTE ]

The analogy doesn't play out in reality. Stop a bunch of our 4 diminsional college grads and quiz them on some 2D geometry fundamentals or 3D situations and you'll find they rarely have a clue about the principles at work in the lower dimensions. In that sense they would seem god-like in that they do bungle a lot of simple stuff.

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
(we are ignoring the fact that 2D man would fall in half because his digestive tract splits him in two).


[/ QUOTE ]

In fact, this engineering problem and many others like it have been overcome: see Dewdney's "The Planiverse" for one solution.

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
There are infinite dimensions!

If I take a trillion integrals over a line, I'm going to get a number, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course. And that number would be...42.

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
Would like others thoughts on this.

2Dimensional man comes accross a circle with a dot inside it. He cant get to the dot because it is impossible for him to get past the circle (we are ignoring the fact that 2D man would fall in half because his digestive tract splits him in two).

3D man comes along, sees a dot inside a circle and just reaches overtop the circle and touches/grabs the dot. To 2D man, this is a miracle.

Now where it gets interesting...

3D man comes accross a ball surrounded by a sphere. He cannot touch/grab the ball since it is impossible for him to get past the sphere.

Along comes 4D man. He sees the ball inside the sphere and takes it. The sphere is no more barrier to him than the circle was to 3D man. To 3D man this is a miracle.

Now 4D man comes accross a sphere surronded by the 4D equivilent of a dot/circle/sphere. To him he cant touch/grab the sphere. But 5D man can easily take the sphere, there is no barrier for him. To 4D man this is a miracle.

Soooo...Is god 4D man?

[/ QUOTE ]

A higher dimensional being cannot enter into the lower dimensional world as that is contrary to the conservation of mass.

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

I wonder, it is said we only use 10% of our brain capacity...if we could somehow trigger an ability to use all 100% firing on every piston, how many dimensions could we understand?

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
I wonder, it is said we only use 10% of our brain capacity

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a myth. The 10% number refers to approximately how much brain power is used when we are not actively thinking about anything (usually while we sleep). It is the amount of power the brain uses to run the auto-systems of our bodies. Even this number is off though; More recent study techniques have enabled us to look deeper into the brain than earlier methods, and have shown that the number is actually closer to 20% for most people.


Most of the population can use 98%+ when figuring out complex problems involving thinking and reasoning. There are some people who are usually labeled as mentally retarded who can not enable the use of some good portions of their brains, and instead use around 60%-75%.

Re: 2D, 3D and 4D Man
 

[ QUOTE ]
Most of the population can use 98%+ when figuring out complex problems involving thinking and reasoning. There are some people who are usually labeled as mentally retarded who can not enable the use of some good portions of their brains, and instead use around 60%-75%.

[/ QUOTE ] Did the study indicate which internet forums the latter group tends to post on?