How plausible is it to think of time as the fourth dimension? (please explain in simple words and in as lucid manner as possible. non-copied answers will be appreciated)
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Answer:
Well, it is quite appealing to consider time as the fourth dimension.We are quite used to time coordinates.Like for example, we often say “meet me at the coffee shop at 4 pm”; here we are actually specifying a time coordinate.Nothing is wrong with it.
There are a few ways to interpret what we mean by the fourth dimension but they all boil down to considering another degree of freedom that is independent of the three spatial dimensions(i.e, length breadth and height) that we already know.
And of course it is perfectly possible for time to change independently of the three spatial dimensions-all you have to do is sit still in a place for a certain time, and your temporal coordinate will change independent of your spatial coordinates( as a matter of fact, in this example your spatial coordinates will theoretically remain constant and your time coordinate will change).
But there are other problems that arise when you consider time as the fourth dimension.
You are not entirely free to move around in the time dimension.Actually you are stuck, in the time dimension,moving only in the forward direction at a relative rate you cannot control.Travelling backwards in time is theoretically not possible.There’s the Grandfather paradox proving that travelling backwards in time is not possible.
There is also another problem that arises. I have discussed in the beginning of this answer how you can change your time coordinate without changing your spatial coordinates.That is we have proved that a change of coordinates in the temporal dimension is independent of the other three spatial dimensions.But the converse is not true.Considering arbitrary spatial coordinates P and Q , how could you possibly move from P to Q without any passage of time?That will be absurd. That is the three spatial dimensions are not independent of time(or the temporal dimension), even though change in time coordinates is independent of the three spatial dimensions.
And that’s why I really do not think of time as the fourth dimension.I rather think of the fourth dimension to be another spatial dimension which we cannot experience.Most mathematicians think this way even though it is abstract.We cannot even visualize the fourth dimension in our brain.We are three dimensional beings perceiving the things around us in two dimensions.But by drawing analogies mathematicians have come across a four dimensional concept unit-called the tesseract.
Don't be mislaid by the sci-fi name of the concept unit- the mathematics behind it is rock solid.
Tesseract is the four-dimensional analogue of the cube; the tesseract is to the cube what the cube is to the square. To make it clearer, a line segment usually represents 1 dimension, a square plane generally represents 2 dimensions, a cube represents 3 dimensions and a tesseract represents 4 dimensions.But since we are three dimensional beings we can visualize up to 3 dimensions.We cannot really visualize the tesseract the way it actually is.We are just sure that logically a tesseract exists.We are sure about the abstraction. And we can surely visualize the projections or shadows or slices of the tesseract in other lower dimensions.
Explanation:
i don't that this would help you
Answer:
Min Lady, you are one of the best answerers i have ever seen.
your answers are always correct and have the utmost level of clarification.
keep it up, Mio Amore.
Happy Diwali.
keep sane.