What is a Dimension Anyway? | Hacker News Reader

What is a Dimension Anyway?

sciam.com

9 pointsnickb15 comments

The classic book "Flatland" is a great read for anyone trying to wrap their mind around more than 3 dimensions. There was a sequel to the book written much later by another author, it was called "Flatterland" and I believe it touched on fractal and fractional dimensions and the like. However, I can't say how good it was because I didn't get through it.

Anyways, go read "Flatland" if you haven't had your mind blown this month.

Agreed. It's a short book (<200 pages) that you can finish in an a few days. Might give you a new perspective too.

On a related subject, the video “Not Knot” is quite fascinating.

part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGLPbSMxSUM

part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKwAS5omW_w

It describes the space created by a certain type of knot, or rather the space that is created outside of it (“not knot”.)

Why was I expecting a discussion involving Star Schemas and Fact tables?

Dimension is a cardinality of a base.

must. have. more. coffee.

My brain is not ready for sponge-dimensions this early.

This page seems like an answer, but I'm not sure what the question is -- if it is "What's a dimension?" then I didn't get an answer.

Fun stuff though. The Flatland book looks like a keeper.

1 Dimension items could be best measured in time maybe. 3 Dimensions items could be best measured in matter at a specific point in time since matter is constantly moving. This is just my thinking.

I think space-time can be defined in terms of mass. time is a change in mass, space is the number of atoms that can fit between here and there. mass has 4 dimensions, so space time does as well. if mass had a different number of dimensions so would space time.

I try to avoid snark on YC, but the "armchair philosopher" approach to physics makes me think of http://www.timecube.com

what exactly is a thought experiment then?

space is the number of atoms that can fit between here and there

What about the space between the nucleus and electrons of an atom?

mass has 4 dimensions, so space time does as well

Does it make sense to refer to the 4 dimensions of mass without first positing space time? You seem to be begging the question here.

1. fine, the number of quarks that fit between here and there. if we discover something smaller it will be that. If this wasn't true, it seems to me that space would be infinitely divisible, but it's not. Why would the Planck length be derivable from so many other physical constants such as the speed of light?

2. no, i think it's everyone else who has begged the question by referring to space-time first because it is observable. fallacy of scale is involved here.

It seems to me that what I'm saying is what the article was trying to do as well, derive the fact of 4 dimensional space-time from the physical properties of matter.

A great(ish) philosopher once said that the point of having philosophers was to save regular people from the effort of having to think about philosophical questions.

Likewise, the point of having physicists is to save regular people from having to think up nonsense pseudotheories on their own.

I just saved you some time.

Don't mistake my intentions, I'm not out to prove anything. the idea that our reality is defined by the properties of mass is more philosophy than science. I'm a materialist reductionist, and really my take on this is that it is a human centered subject-object orientation.

hey, email me please, or post an email in your about me area

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