Explain in VERY simple terms what a dimension is for me, I don't understand how there can be 3, and that time

Question

is the fourth??????

How can time be a dimension, how can anything.

Just say that you have a cardboard box, everything in that box is air and empty space, how can there be more than one dimension, what is a dimension, it it made of matter??? (I'm a biologist, not a physicist)

Also, what is time, I don't believe there is a force regulating the movement of molecules and atoms, if we never even contemplated time then nothing would be any different, because batteries make a clock tick, which measures how long until the end of the day. Time isn't a force. Or is it?

Answer 1

The fourth dimension is referred to as time because of 3d charting.

Say you have a 3d chart of two airplanes traveling through the sky, and they both cross through the point x,y,z. That is a measure of depth, height and width on a coordinate map.
Now, that would mean that the planes crash at that point. But they don't necessarily crash because there is another dimension involved, time. The way real world events are charted involves length width height and time when. That means its XYZ time. that makes time the 4th dimension.

If you are talking about another direction being the 4th dimension, then when we discover how to move in that direction, time will be the 5th dimension.

ALSO: Look at the animation by clicking on the helix at the right side of this website, it should help you.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

Have you ever seen a 3D movie. As a viewer you can appreciate the distances from one dimension to another. Now it can not be seen with the naked eye a special carton eye glasses must be used. So in layman terms there are different dimensions within a dimension.

About time, if I am not mistaken the earth rotates around the sun, as the earth moves around the sun, there is a tilting of about 19 to 23 degrees. Time is told by the earth rotating around the sun in 24 hours. The idea of creating a time clock was developed for people like you and me that want things now and not later. Remember ther was and is a sun clock.

Look up to the sky and enjoy the clouds.

Answer 3

I think a Dimension is a measurement... like Length, Width, and Height. When you have the three dimensions you have a solid object like the cardboard box. There is Volume of the box, which is the space inside it. You get that by using the three dimensions Length,Width, and Height. In Area you use two dimensions Length and width. Sorry If I can't answer any better :{

Answer 4

A dimension is a measurement you can make to specify the location of something. I can tell you that San Francisco is north of Los Angeles. I can tell you it is 250 miles north. But no other north-south measurement will help you find it. The best step I can take is to make another measurement in a perpendicular direction. So I tell you SF is also 230 miles west of LA.

How about the top of the Transamerica tower? Let's take another measurement in another direction (up) that's perpendicular to both north-south and east-west. That's all you need, right?

What about the bird sitting atop the tower? I can give precise 3-dimensional coordinates of the top of the tower, but I also need to tell you when the bird was there. That's all you need, right?

Well, do I need to tell you which of many parallel universes encompasses the presence of this bird at this place and time (place/time or space-time)?

The least satisfying thing about superstring theory is that it requires 10 or more dimensions for the math to work.

Answer 5

Very good question. Quite simply the 3 Dimensions that we see are height (up & down), width (left & right), and depth (front & back). Beyond that there are dimensions such as time which are concidered a dimension because it is a continuous measurement of past to future (point A to point B). Thats the simplest way I can think to describe it. Hope it helps.

Answer 6

Yupp... you are right. 3 Dimension as refer to x, y and z axis in a planar form. Or r, theta and z in circular coordinate.

It is the most fundamental here we are looking at. And merely every equation is base on this fundamental for its derivatives. What are those? Well... simply right now are you standing on the floor. With respect to any datum that you are going to define, the value that you are going to measure could be a distance away yourself to the datum. Hence, in a 3 + 1 D world we are living in, we are always refer to x, y and z position with respect to the origin. The last 1D is develop when we find that time is the factor for an object to determine the last coordination with respect to the 3D. Hence, 4D is form the basis of our engineering calculation nowadays.

Anyhow, i think you are confuse with the force with respect to the 4D and the batteries and so on. Well, i guess you need to be more firm on the basic prior to your proceeding else, you will be geeting more confuse in future undertaking.

Answer 7

The three "normal" dimensions are length, width, and depth. Each is made up of measurable spatial units. For instance, a box is three feet long, two feet wide, and five feet deep. These are the three spatial dimensions. Time is directly related to all of them because it takes time to move from one point to another. In the box above it might take three seconds to move from the back of it to the rear.

Answer 8

Okay.

A line is a one dimentional object. It only has length. If you could only perceive one dimention like a line, you'd only see in front of you and in back of you. Up, down, and side to side would not exist.

A square is a 2D object. It has length and width but no depth. According to some guy in some article in some science magazine I read a while back, if you lived in 2D land, which lets say was the surface of a table, and someone set a cylindrical can of soda down on the table, you'd only see a circle because you cannot perceive it's height, which in this case counts as depth. As a citizen of 2D land, you can only percieve things in two dimentions.

A can of soda is a 3D object. It has width, length, and depth.

So a dimention is really a place in which a physical aspect of something manifests itself. We are most familiar with spatial dimentions. A lot of people say time is the 4th dimention because it is a physical manifestion of the universe but time is a "temporal dimention" not a "spatial dimention" like length or width is.

Another analogy of dimention is, pretend you live in a universe where light manifests only in the 4th dimention. Let's say you're holding a flashlight and you turn it on. You see nothing. But now lets say you are given the magical ability to percieve the 4th dimention and you turn the flashlight on and you see light.

So there you have it. Dimentions.

Answer 9

as you may have heard and realise you live in a three dimension world. meaning that in order to oriantate and refer to a specific point in your world you will need a set of three numbers that come derive directly from a systme of 3 axis and their vectors that connect their origin to this specifi point.

on a system of co-oridnates that ones declares can define a uniqu point in space.
if you look at your table that it is a 2d system by assigning somthing like a cartesian system on this plane you may be bale to define all the point on the table (and on the ame plane of this table to infinity) so if in the midle of this table you have a system that you define then you may define all the points on it.

now take the point on the table (1 , 1) it means that this table is the one where if you draw a parallel line to x-axis and a parallele line to y axis these two lines interecpt.

it is unique and you may refer to it by this set of co-ordinates and everyone can understant what you are talkin about.
NOW imaginthat you look at this point and you are siting above the table at a right angle above this point. how can you define a point that is 1cm above it 2cm above it and son.
you introduce then the third dimension and from plane geometry you make your transition to sterometry. where three axis define unique point.

as you look at a map you need two variables to determine your posistion. in a gps though since height is importan too by only 3 variables you get a unique signatue. so if you say that my current position is (X, Y, Z) anyone understands where you are.
for a physistit time is importan two . if you look at a stationary (relativeley) point you come to realise that there is a nothing interesting in it if there are no changes involved. but there are. if you take a pictur of this point now and then after 2 hours how would you know which one was drawn first.
time comes to place and the fact that entropy rises. so the picture with greater wntropy was drawn last.

i will not discuss about time. time is subjevtice and ogjective as well. it is a dimension that was defined based on our way of understanding. that doesnot mean that it doesnot exsist. it is a huge discusion. but it is not a force.
there are too many question and difficult ones. i hope i gave you some examples on dimensional analysis