Folding Space? Sounds difficult

Originally posted by Maggot Minion
If you folded spac it would require there be a 4th dimension. When you fold a peice of paper you change it from 2 to 3 dimensions. Wouldn't that mean that to fold space we would first have to learn more of this 4th dimensions

Actually Spacetime IS the 4th dimension.

Actually Spacetime IS the 4th dimension.

Where do you get this information? And why? I view things much differently.. In my opinion that would be like people a long time ago (back when the world was flat. lol) saying that water, and the oceans are the 4th dimension... Thats just how i view things though. And if this is the case... what about the 5th then?

I'm talking about Eisteinian Spacetime, which has a pile of experimental evidance and circumstantial evidance to back it up. We have a very good handle on that part, what we do NOT know is how gravity works at the Sub-Atomic(and we are still coming to grips with Black Holes as well), that is where theories like M-Theory(more commonly known as String Theory) comes into play.

Take a look at this website, Eistein was mostly right just as Newton was but he didn't have the whole picture, here's the link.

www.pbs.org... -- Informative site

www.pbs.org... -- The PBS program itself, requires Quicktime I believe...

Some more good links to read up on....

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 30-3-2005 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by sardion2000
I'm talking about Eisteinian Spacetime, which has a pile of experimental evidance and circumstantial evidance to back it up. We have a very good handle on that part, what we do NOT know is how gravity works at the Sub-Atomic(and we are still coming to grips with Black Holes as well), that is where theories like M-Theory(more commonly known as String Theory) comes into play.

Take a look at this website, Eistein was mostly right just as Newton was but he didn't have the whole picture, here's the link.

www.pbs.org... -- Informative site

www.pbs.org... -- The PBS program itself, requires Quicktime I believe...

Some more good links to read up on....

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 30-3-2005 by sardion2000]

Einsteinian space? Please, call it by their names, General Relativity and Special Relativity.

Time, according to Special Relativity, is a dimension within space-time, specifically the fourth dimension, but it's not a spatial dimension. I suspect that some misunderstand the meaning of the term "dimension" and have a little reading to do.

Re. Maggot Minion's post: Anyway, one way to solve the problem of folding a piece of paper and making it three dimensional is to think of stretch stuff, like rubber or silly putty. Imagine the paper as being stretchy like that, except that it won't break no matter how much you stretch it. Think about what happens to the sides that are not being stretched. Do they not come closer together? Essentially, that is what would happen in 3d space. There's no need for a fourth spatial dimension.

Heh, funny, I was going to talk about topology, even though I have never studied, and then realized that such was unnecessary. I think I'll just avoid that entire subject. Topology makes my head spin. I wish I could understand it, though. It's required for understanding Superstring theory, which has not been verified, but it's definitely the most romantic "theory of everything" that I've ever heard. I, for one, definitely hope that it turns out to be the correct "theory of everything," because if it is, our universe, err, universes are a lot more exciting than I thought. Hmm, aliens living in other branes? How fun would that be?! Ok, so aliens quite possibly don't live in other branes, particularly since I am a little confused as to their nature (did I mention that I've not studied topology?).

Einsteinian space? Please, call it by their names, General Relativity and Special Relativity.

I knew someone was gonna step in and correct me

Ok, so aliens quite possibly don't live in other branes, particularly since I am a little confused as to their nature (did I mention that I've not studied topology?).

Well a brane is like a slice of bread, each slice make up a universe(and the whole loaf would be the multiverse). I really hope string theory pans out it's so elegant and yes romantic.

[edit on 30-3-2005 by sardion2000]

.
First you would probably need to know what forces, effects, things contain the 4D spacetime and keep it from bleeding off into the 5th dimension.

In any event you would have to some kind of containment on top and bottom of the Universe to keep it intact prior to folding/bending.

Get a piece of paper. Crumple it up.
Is this wadded ball of paper where you want to live?

Dawnstar insightfully points out there may be consquences.

I can't imagine doing these gross manipulations of the Universe are not without some quite severe consquences.

I think some kind of parallel track that runs alongside the Universe makes more sense and preserves the Universe better.

Take care of the Universe you know and love. TLC.
.

"As far as dawnstar's concerns go, I'm not sure there is anyone here that could answer that question properly. I don't know the answer to it. We'd have to find a Genuine Physicist(TM) (by the way, that's me being silly, so laugh) to answer that question. "
--------------------------------------------------------


ya, only they probably don't know either, and the only way they could find out is to try it and see, kind of like ole Ben Franklin with his kite, only we aren't as smart I don't think anymore, we'd forget the key and zap our corner of the galaxy out of existance.


--------------------------------------------------------------
"Re. Maggot Minion's post: Anyway, one way to solve the problem of folding a piece of paper and making it three dimensional is to think of stretch stuff, like rubber or silly putty. Imagine the paper as being stretchy like that, except that it won't break no matter how much you stretch it. Think about what happens to the sides that are not being stretched. Do they not come closer together? Essentially, that is what would happen in 3d space. There's no need for a fourth spatial dimension."
-------------------------------------------------------------------


okay, let's take the peice of paper, and lets say we want to go to way over on the other side of the milky way galaxy....so we fold the "paper" in half. But, what if the texture of the paper is more like that of chewing gum, ya know real sticky, and with lots of sticky little tentacles hanging down from it...since well, isn't gravity one of the things that keeps our planets and more than likely the stars in their place. okay, we fold the paper in half....so we are closer to the little solar system we want to visit on the other side of the galaxy. if the paper was folded tight, which I don't believe is what you are talking about, but well, look what has happened to that vastly populated center of our galaxy.....all of those star, planets, and such would be sitting on top of each other...if the paper is sticky like gum, you wouldn't be able to separate them, once they came close enough for their stickyness to attract the other side. The other side, could possibly come crashing down on it. We could possibly send our galaxy out with one big BANG!!!!

I can't imagine doing these gross manipulations of the Universe are not without some quite severe consquences.

But theoretically, such bypasses already occur naturally, (i.e. wormholes).
Just a matter of generating a wormhole ourself to the desired point in space/time (not to mention either converting ourselves into energy to travel in it, or make the wormhole big enough to accept a ship).

in regards to folding you might want to check out this thread

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Just for reference, this was the basis of the movie 'Event Horizon'

imdb.com...

Originally posted by Gazrok

I can't imagine doing these gross manipulations of the Universe are not without some quite severe consquences.

But theoretically, such bypasses already occur naturally, (i.e. wormholes).
Just a matter of generating a wormhole ourself to the desired point in space/time (not to mention either converting ourselves into energy to travel in it, or make the wormhole big enough to accept a ship).

To some degree, you're correct, but not completely. At this point in our understanding of the universe, there's no reason they can't exist, but that doesn't mean they do, or actually can exist. Simply put, their existence, or non-existence, is pure speculation relative to our understanding of science at this point in time.

Hence the "theoretically", hehe....but yeah, I see where you're coming from...

Originally posted by supercheetah
Somewhat easy to understand summary of the idea.

Think of space-folding as a way of bringing the destination closer to you. A good way to imagine this is to take a piece of paper, mark one end "a" and the other "b." Now imagine an ant crawling across the paper from "a" to "b." If you leave the paper flat on the table, that might take a little while. Now pick up the paper and fold it so that "a" and "b" are right next to each other. Now imagine the ant trying to get from "a" to "b." It's much faster. Essentially, this is what space folding does, except it works in three dimensions rather than two.

If M-theory or Superstring theory turns out to be true, then there may be easier ways to travel vast distances of space in short amounts of time.

thats a good way of explaining it good job now i understand it

Just for clarification, any point in space (3D) can be defined by x,y,z, whereas any point in space-time (4D) can be defined by x,y,z,t, where t is time. As was already stated, time technically isn't a spatial dimension.

To fold space-time, we'd be making a fourth spatial dimension. The Hypercube is an example of a 4D object. It's impossible to realise what it would look like, as we can't percieve anything other than 3 dimensions.

Let's say our 3D space was reduced to a 2D space; like a piece of paper. That would mean the fourth spatial dimension would become the third spatial dimension when the paper was folded. The points that don't like on the paper are in hyperspace.

And for fun, a Wikipedia article about the fourth spatial dimension, rather than space-time.

this topic reminds me of that book A Wrinkle In Time

I have heard scientists theorizing of 10 or 11 dimesnions of reality. how they come up with this stuff is beyond me. Understanding space-time is difficult most people dont think this way. An analogy that helps is to imagine spacetiime as a flat sheet of paper. imagine anything with mass sitting on it. a bowling ball causes curvatures in the paper. same thing with planets. becuase their mass is so great it causes curvatures in space time. This is the effect we know as gravity. This why understanding what gravity is made up of is kinda like finding out what spacetime is made up of. being able to manipulate gravity would directly affect our ability to manipulate space and time.

Originally posted by Trustnone
I have heard scientists theorizing of 10 or 11 dimesnions of reality. how they come up with this stuff is beyond me. Understanding space-time is difficult most people dont think this way. An analogy that helps is to imagine spacetiime as a flat sheet of paper. imagine anything with mass sitting on it. a bowling ball causes curvatures in the paper. same thing with planets. becuase their mass is so great it causes curvatures in space time. This is the effect we know as gravity. This why understanding what gravity is made up of is kinda like finding out what spacetime is made up of. being able to manipulate gravity would directly affect our ability to manipulate space and time.

There's a possibility of eleven dimensions, according to the hypothesis of supergravity.

That damned gravity, the weakest of all forces, is still proving to be a hindrance to our complete understanding of the universe. One would think that we would understand gravity the best since we've been able to observe it for a much longer period of time than the other forces.

Physics is such an interesting field right now. Our science is so nascent, but our understanding of the universe is exploding, and things will only get more fun from here on out. Reading about it all can really spur the imagination.

Originally posted by masterofpuppets
this topic reminds me of that book A Wrinkle In Time

Same thing. If you remember, the book in the beginning explains the exact same thing, just uses an ant and a skirt. It even calls it the fifth dimension.

there is no up or down in space, so what direction would be called what?
I'm not talking about North, East, South, or West, this is oviously where the differnt dimensions come in!!! You've heard about 6 figure grid refernece to locate a place? Space is so vast, a remarkable new co-ordinate system would have to be advised.

developing a foliding space drive, around a co-ordinate system, would give us our sence of direction and our exact point in space!

an answer is often found easier when not thinking about it.
The answer to achieve vast space travel, might be alot simpler than we think. Perhaps we are trying to hard, and it is staring us in the face!!

In years to come when such an acomplishment is achieved, by folding space, we will lecture it as easy and working out PIE!!!

Folding space is a stupid metaphor that makes no sense in real science. It is a concept that has captured the imagination of lay people.