• Honestly it’s pretty funny to me how people think 4d is all strange and terrifying, when in fact it’s (to the degree that it can be said to actually exist, since it’s theoretical/mathematical) pretty “simple” and just headache inducing to try to wrap your head around.

    like your mind wouldn’t shatter from being moved through 4d space, things would just look completely nonsensical and impossible, it’s no more lovecraftian than subatomic physics. It’s just Kronk saying “by all accounts, it doesn’t make sense”.

    • No, being rotated in the 4th dimension and plopped back down into the third dimension would be horrible and it wouldn’t surprise me if it killed you. For one, it would absolutely feel like a Lovecraftian nightmare. Your right arm is now your left. Your heart is in a different side of your chest. The “you” you see in the mirror will be the “you” you’ve seen in photographs. But look into chirality in chemistry. Your body would suddenly have tons of molecules that are a mirror image of what they should be and work with the mirror images of molecules they used to. Everything already in you would get flipped, but you might be on a ticking clock if you aren’t able to get the chiral opposites of necessary amino acids.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_(chemistry)

    • We actually kinda do perceive a fourth dimension: time. Sure, we infer it from our memories and come up with cause and effect relationships to help us understand it. But we do know it’s there.

        • I think that’s one of the theories for explaining dark matter (i personally like the idea because it can also possibly address why gravity seems to be so much weaker of a fundamental force, but i’m a chemist, not a physicist, so take that with a grain of salt).

    • If there are higher dimensions, say the extra seven asserted by String Theory, then we have breadth (thickness?) along each axis that is non zero. The higher-order string theory dimensions (which communicate particle information like gravity) are tightly rolled up.

      Brian Greene uses the metaphore of an ant on a wire who can move along the wire freely, but can’t go far laterally. They may be so small that our quantum bits can’t drift anywhere, so our liver doesn’t abandon us drift along a high-level axis.

      If there are flat higher level dimensions, then either a force or some kind of membrane would have to exist to keep our blood from leaking.

      That said, when we have pure elements, or even pure minerals or chemicals, they retain the same density (mass to volume, sometimes affected by temperature) which suggests nothing is hiding away in other dimensions whenever we take measurements. If there is room along higher axes for unseen activity, it doesnt bug us enough to work out consistent properties.

  •  loops   ( @loops@beehaw.org ) 
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    124 days ago

    ᴰ̵̼͍̣̤̤̹͙̱́̆̔̌̓͒̂͑́ᴼ̶̢̡̝͎̣͍͕̻̯̪͊̀̏̃̾̎́̓̈́͘ ̷̡̼̮̖͖̩͕͍͛̅̔͂̂̉͒̐ᴺ̸̡̺͍̙͔͖͙̟̮̕ᴼ̷̡̧̢̟̥̘̼̖̦̘̔̏̈́ᵀ̸̥̯͍̗͔̲̫̽̈ ̸̖̲͕͐̿́́̍̆̾͘͝ᶠ̸̧̡͈̯̬͗͂̐͒̏̈́̕͝ᴱ̴͈̮̩̼̅̍͑́͘ᴬ̸̡͓͊͌̐̀̑̓̌̈́̓̓ᴿ̸̡̘̩̺̺̈́̿̐̀̚