How many dimensions are there and how do they affect reality?

Question

I am having difficulty with the 4 we are aware of!

Answer 1

Depends what flavour of string theorist you ask. I've heard people talk about 12 or more. Course it could all be nonsense. Maybe there are no dimensions, the physical world is all an illusion and we are just thoughts in the mind of God. Probably not though.

Answer 2

There are four quantities in the Universe that are the bases for all measurements,they are;. kilograms ,meters,seconds, and degree of angle. From these we derive all dimensions.
The spacial dimensions of the Universe are meter cube. This represent a volume. A volume can be expressed in terms of vectors of multidimensions which is called a Tensor. a tensor can be set to express the volume of space as nine dimensions ,36 dimensions or close to infinite dimensions. However no matter how many dimension a tensors has it can be expressed as just the 3 dimensions of the rectangular coordinates or a 3 D vector.

Time is a quantity that tells you how fast the volume has travelled.

The degree is a quantity that tells you how much a volume has rotated.

Mass is a quantity that tells you how much substance exists in the volume.

Distance in meters is a quantity that tell yous you how far a volume has displaced during one cycle of motion.

So these are the dimensions which tells you what you can feel or touch they expresed the reality of our existance.

All measurements are relative to a base zero point coordinate.
Time is used to determine the response of a system relative to another interacting system.The anaylsis of such interactions indicate a response having multiple roots solutions. However The control systems in the universe after all said and done boils down to a simple 2nd order differential equation solution.
Oher wise we would be doing insane chasing so many multiple dimensions that we cannot even conceive.

Answer 3

I've heard theory that suggest up to 27 dimensions, with some dimensions being called small dimensions. I think that above the spacial dimensions (1-3) there are hyperspacial dimensions that allow for changes in the spacial dimensions. With out time (4), motion becomes irrelevant, so space becomes totally static. People have also stated that reality (5 and possibly 6) are affected by choice, though in a linear way, with divergences cancelling themselves out through the function of time (4). Some also believe that there are some more elementary dimensions (7-10?) that have influence over time and reality in much the same way that time and reality have incluence over space, altering and defining them. The small dimensions (11-27) are strange, and may deal with the universe on a level we are unable to percieve.

Other people believe that the higher dimensions only exist at a single point in time, and that they in essence have no lasting influence in space-time.

Finally others believe that above a certain level (normally around 5) the math functions that predict additional dimensions actually cancel themselves out in a way that they limit the amount of real dimensions to 4-6, and then above that they are just theoretical dimensions whose existance is only useful for scientific study.

Answer 4

Hold on to your hat.

In Supersymmetry, the extra dimensions help explain the interactions between particles (and even the existence of the particles).

By observation, the number of symmetry generators is 32 or less.

"Since the maximum number of supersymmetries is 32, the greatest number of dimensions a supersymmetric theory can exist in is eleven dimensions." (link to source, below)

This does not mean there are 11.

It simply means that any theory that calls for more than 11 dimensions will have some explaining to do when it gets home.

Even the one with 11 already has to explain why the graviton has not yet been observed.

---

The extra dimensions are needed to explain some interactions. My example is not very good but gives you an idea.

We see a photon as something that travels at a given speed (the speed of light, believe it or not) and taking time to move from A to B. For example, when we see a star that is 700 light years away, then we "observe" a photon that has travelled for 700 years.

Relative time flow changes with the speed of the object. Using the Lorentz gamma factor and applying it to the frame of the photon, then we must admit that, from the photon's point of view, the elapsed time was zero. Because the photon's speed is finite (whatever it is, it is not infinite), then the distance travelled must be 0 times "speed" = 0.

So, from the photon's frame of reference, the distance between the star and your eye was very close to 0, meaning that your eye was in contact with the star. This is certainly impossible in our "ordinary" three (or four) dimensions, therefore there must be another one which we can't perceive but which allow the photon to be in contact with whatever will perceive it, just as it leaves its source.

In string theories, the other dimensions are "curled up" with sizes close to 10^-35 m, that is
0.00000000000000000000000000000000001 metre.
(rest your mouse, without clicking, on the number)

"The characteristic length scale of strings may be estimated by the Planck length of quantum gravity" (third link)

Supersymmetry is a mathematical relation between bosons and fermions, in some versions of string theory.

Enjoy.

Answer 5

Physicists can use "hyperspace" theory to explain all the physical phenomena we see. Hyperspace is nothing to do with star wars, star trek, spaceballs, galaxy quest or anything like that. It simply means dimensions above 3D and time.

I believe physicists reckon they can sort most of it out with 11 dimensions.

Gravity can be explained by adding a 4th spacial dimension which runs at right angles to the 3 we can see. This extra, spacial dimension we can't see is how space bends. We can't see the curve but feel it as gravity. Interestingly, 3D objects cast 2D shadows. They say a 4D object would cast a 3D shadow. Maybe we're all shadows of something in a higher dimension. Woaaah! That's not easy on the brain. .

Electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces can be explained in a similar way. Just keep adding more and more until you explain them all.
How they effect us by these forces is that they have to be scrunched up so tight to fit at right angles to reality that some of the effects leak out to create the forces that bind our universe together.

All I can say is if the nuclear effects we get here are simply little leaks from another dimension, I'm glad they're all hidden away where I can't go. If a the effects of a thermonuclear bomb is a leak, imagine what that place it leaked from is like.

That's my understanding anyway

Google "tesseract" if you want to transcend your mind to a higher dimension

Answer 6

The easiest way to understand dimensions is to look at the optical illusions in a cinema. Although you know there is no depth in a cinema screen, you can see there is depth. There is a program I have seen called "Search For The 11th Dimension". The common dimensions consist of horizonatal and vertical, then space and time, then there are abstract ones, I've heard a very good answer that the 11th dimension is at string theory level it's a curl.

Answer 7

Are you OK with the first 3? Height / width / depth ?
You can consider TIME as the 4th dimension by itself or SPACE / TIME continuum as the 4th and 5th dimensions. This involves curved space as a new dimension.
Of course that is just ordinary space/ time.
Inside a black hole space and time lose their usual identity.
Also objects with more than quantum mass behave differently a speeds approaching the speed of light. (like distant stars)
After that is gets a little more theoretical.
If you allow for parallel universes, you can go up to an infinite number of dimensions.
And then of course, there is "The Twilight Zone."

Answer 8

Some say there are 3, but Einstein said that time is fourth dimension. Time is relative, so if you are sitting 5 min on a hot stove, it`s relatively long time. But if you are sitting 5 min near some cute chick, it relatively short.

Answer 9

A book about string theory says eleven dimensions are used in it.

Answer 10

We really don't know the answer to this. There are the 4 basic ones. But we really don't understand sub atomic particles well enough to know what dimensions are there.
B