Is there a 4th Dimension ? If yes who discovered it and how to visualise it?

Answer 1

Sorry, you wont be able to see it, however, there is one.

Answer 2

A fourth spatial dimension has been proposed for a long time. At least since the 1920's. The concept has influenced a lot of art and literature. For example, some Picasso paintings are an attempt to show what things would look like if they could be seen from all sides at once.

No one has discovered a fourth dimension because it is impossible for us to directly observe it. In Edwin Abbott Abbott's book Flatland, he writes about a square that lives in a two-dimensional world, like the surface of a piece of paper. A three-dimensional being has seemingly god-like powers from the perspective of this square: such as being able to remove objects from a safe without breaking it open (by moving it across the third dimension). By applying dimensional analogy, one can infer that a four-dimensional being would be capable of similar feats from our three-dimensional perspective.

Visualizing the fourth dimension is a little difficult. Do you know how you can model a square in two dimensions by drawing a small square within a large square and connecting the corners? You can do the same thing with a three-dimensional cube within a larger cube. It is called a tesseract.

Answer 3

TIME as many before me have stated IS the 4th dimension. What no one yet has pointed out ...(Or they don't realize it) ...is that time and space are one. This actually means that time exists and flows in one direction BECAUSE the universe is still expanding. It is creating liner time as it expands space. That is why time has a one way arrow. (Past, -> Present,-> Future) As strange as it sounds, it is actually true that IF the universe were to collapse, (like in a big crunch scenario) Time will then run backwards. (Really) -- Although recent data suggests that the universe is actually expanding a little faster now, there are still about 1/3 of cosmologists that think it will collapse one day. I personally agree with this theory of a cycle of expansion and collapse periods that the universe goes through. It nicely handles the problem of Equilibrium which everything in the universe strives for. It also is the most logical way of explaining the force needed for the Big Bang. The collapse actually causes the next Big Bang when it implodes and turns inside out after getting to the smallest point possible. We now are only in one of the expansion phases. This is the most accurate discription of the real universe and you should all read and re-read this until you understand it and believe. Take note below of the other two people that contributed to the idea. (Source.)

Answer 4

The 4th dimension is considered time. To visualize it, imagine a snapshot of yourself on the keyboard. Now imagine yourself 1 sec from that point. Keep on doing this, once you line everything up, you have a representation of the 4th dimension.

The human mind has trouble imagining things in the 4th dimension, so we frequently project the 4th dimension into the 3rd or 2nd. We can do so many ways. For example, look at the exposed film of a movie, here we are seeing the 3rd and 4th dimensions being projected onto a 2D plane.

Projecting things??? Well, imagine you have a cube, its projection onto the surface of your table is a projection of a 3D object into 2 dimensions.

Answer 5

As others have already noted, the 4th dimension is commonly understood to be time. But I presume you mean a 4th spacial dimension.

I'm not sure who first thought up the concept of a 4th spacial dimension, though in Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series he discusses what it would be like.

If you have a line, that's 1 dimension. Draw a second line perpendicular to it, then you have 2 dimensions. You can represent the 2 dimensions with the variables x & y, as on a graph. Now if you draw a 3rd line that is perpendicular to both the x & y, then that line would have to come straight out of the paper. That would be the 3rd dimension, z.

So to draw the 4th dimension, we would need to draw a line that was perpendicular to all 3 smaller dimensions, x, y & z. Now, you can point in any direction in those 3 dimensions, but you wouldn't be able to point in a 4th direction. This is because we ourselves only seem to exist in 3 spacial dimensions. And yet, even though we can't point in 4 dimensions, with a bit of work you might be able to visualize it. Just remember that it's perpendicular to the x, y & z axes.

I can visualize it, though it's very hard for me to describe. If I were to throw a ball thru the 4th dimension in a straight line, you would not see it at first, then it might fade into view, then fade out of view again. (Assuming the ball itself was 4-dimensional; if it was 3-dimensional, then it would pop into view suddenly, and disappear almost instantly as it passed by the 3 dimensions you inhabit.)

Have you heard of wormholes? They would allow us to travel from one point in space to another by taking a "shortcut" thru a higher dimension. That higher dimension would be the 4th.

Similarly, when a strong gravity source warps space, that space is being warped into the 4th dimension. Remember the drawings of what a gravity well looks like, like a dip in a grid? That's actually what a gravity well would look like in 2-dimensional space, and it is bending or warping into the 3rd.

Kinda hard to visualize, I know. Check out the link below though, there's a Flash presentation where the guy explains not just 4 dimensions, but 10! Click on the link below, then click on "Imagining the Ten Dimensions" link on the left, and make sure your speakers are on. It'll really stretch your brain! (But in a good way.)

Answer 6

The spirit plane is the 4th dimension, composed of time and space without physical mass. Everyone discovers it when they are unconscious/near death, or when they are dead. To visualize it is always difficult because to see the 4th dimension and come back to this one, there is no way to describe 4th dimension things accurately with 3 dimensional words, and once you are conscious again, your brain trys to process all the 4th dimensional data into 3 dimensional terms. Thus leaving an accurate descriptin lost in the dimensionally cosmic return trip.

Answer 7

Yea...and you're living in it, if i can use the word, then virtually every second....its TIME.
The concept of a fourth dimension is one that is often described in considering its physical implications; that is, we know that in three dimensions, we have dimensions of length (or depth), width, and height. The fourth dimension is orthogonal to the other three spatial dimensions. The cardinal directions in the three known dimensions are called up/down (altitude), north/south (longitude), and east/west (latitude). When speaking of the fourth dimension, an additional pair of terms is needed. Attested terms include ana/kata (sometimes called spissitude or spassitude), vinn/vout (used by Rudy Rucker), and upsilon/delta.

Usually, the fourth dimension is identified with time. In this case, the concept of an additional spatial dimension would be referred to as the fifth dimension.

Answer 8

"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity..." To answer your question, yes, there is a 4th dimension but not the comic book 4th dimension that you are probably thinking of. You have to know what the word dimension means. According to my dictionary, the word dimension is defined as "a measurement such as length, breadth, thickness, area, etc." So count how many ways you can measure something and those are different dimensions.

Answer 9

There is an obvious fourth dimension. If we call the first three length, width and breadth (or depth), the fourth is duration. That's why many science fiction writers use the expression "time," although that's not really what we measure on a physical object.

The box has a length, width and depth; three dimensions. But there is also a time before it existed, and there will doubtless be a time after it no longer exists. The interval is its duration.

Now, is there a Fifth Dimension? You need an old record player or a good bit of LSD to answer that one. Up, up and away . . .

Answer 10

I guess you could say Einstein "discovered" it. That 4th dimension is time, and it is intertwined with space in incredbily awesome ways, referred to as "spacetime." According to Albert, you can't have one without the other. How to visualize it? Oh boy. Not an easy answer. Study cosmology. You might really enjoy the ride. I will recommend some books.

Answer 11

to help u imagine the 4 dimension, just imagine the 3 xyz dimensions with clocks ticking at each 3d point, so if the clock at point (10,6,-1) for example reads 5mins 30secs, this is the 4th d for that point