Gaming in the 4th Dimension 303
Wolf pointed me to a video clip demonstrating this game:
"Miegakure is a platform game where you explore the fourth dimension to solve puzzles. There is no trick; the game is entirely designed and programmed in 4D." Nothing to download yet.
Re:xkcd (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually i think the poster stole it from him.
Re:So Many Questions (Score:3, Insightful)
We haven't been able to find any evidence of "real" higher spatial dimensions
Though superstring theory requires 10 or 11 dimensions of space (from what little I understand), so serious physicists really believe those dimensions might exist.
Spatial dimensions and geometric projections (Score:2, Insightful)
I haven't wtfv (watched the video), but 4-D can be represented in 3- and 2-D using projections, just like we regularly watch 3-D images projected into 2 dimensions (TV, video games).
Think of a cone, a 3 dimension shape. In the 3-to-2 dimension projection, that cone can look like a triangle, a circle, an ellipse, or an ellipse with a point, all depending on how you rotate it.
Now imagine that there's a 4-D shape whose projection changes appearance as the shape is rotated about its fourth-dimensional axis. There's no reason you can't have one projection of it that shows a cube, and another of the same object that shows a sphere.
It's tough to conceive of what this shape looks like since we can't see or experience it in four dimensions. But it's still possible to develop enough of a concept of the shape to recognize its various projections, learn how they're connected, and eventually be able to navigate it.
Projecting a shape from 4 to the 2 dimensions of a screen will lose an awful lot of information, but we seem to be good at developing a 3-D concept based on motion and visual cues.
Interesting stuff.
string theory (Score:3, Insightful)
providing no unique, testable predictions for over 20 years...
Re:So Many Questions (Score:2, Insightful)
serious physicists really believe those dimensions might exist.
Serious physicists work on testable, proveable concepts. String theory is little more than an exercise in imagination and really hairy mathematics. It requires far too many variables to close and new ones are added as they realize that they can't get anything that resembles reality despite the wonderfulness of the math. I've (as an informed layman) have lost interest in this black hole for research funding. Serious physicists have too. The ones still "working" on string theory are doing so because dropping it would invalidate their entire careers.
Re:string theory (Score:5, Insightful)
Fixed that for you. Try to focus on what's really important, will you?
Re:So Many Questions (Score:1, Insightful)
You wouldn't be 'linking' rings though in 2d, you would actually be combining them to form one solid object. The proper analogy would be to try and put a smaller ring completely inside another larger one in 2d, being unable to, and then using 3d space to lift and set one inside.
Re:xkcd (Score:4, Insightful)
Has anyone of you noticed the pun behind A. Square's words?
Guy: "Hey, A. Square, how's flatland?"
A. Square: "Still flat. What's up?"
Take a look at the picture, and notice that there is no "up" in flatland. So, was A. Square's question metaphorical, literal or philosophical?
Re:I Suspect String Theory is Just Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why there are only five elements, Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Quintessence, instead of the hundreds those wrong-headed "scientists" seem to think must exist. They claim there exist so many that they have to lay them out in a table to even make any sense of them! What's worse, they don't even know how many more there can be.
And Newtonian physics is far simpler than quantum theory, as well as simpler even than relativity. Aether is simpler than space-time. Creation is simpler than evolution. Homeopathy is simpler than medicine.
And don't even get me started on chaos theory!
Re:So Many Questions (Score:3, Insightful)
So einstein is the last person that will ever make a scientific discovery?
to be a constructive debate you could at least have the courtesy of saying what part of what i said doesn't really make sense, and provide examples why. or provide examples of why none of this is testable and thus doesn't meet the criteria of a proper scientific theory.
much of what i said is already indeed supported in by relativity, i am merely taking a step further.
yes there is an idiot in this thread, however it isn't me.