I get 1, 2, and 3 dimensions and their visual representations. For instance, 3-dimensional space has width, length, and depth but how about a 6-dimensional space, how can we grasp it in n intuitive manner free of mathematical analysis?
In: 8
If you are driving on a straight flat highway and somebody asks where you are, you only need one piece of information. “I’m five miles east of Bridgeport.” That’s one dimension.
If you’re on a boat, or a checkerboard, you need 2 pieces of information. “I’m at latitude x.xxx and longitude y.yyyy”. Or, “I’m in the third row, second column”. That’s two dimensions.
If you’re a fly in Rene Descartes’ study, you need 3 pieces of information – for example, how far you are from the end wall, how far from the side wall, and how high above the floor. Three dimensions
In all these examples, humans can visualize and draw or model what is going on. We could construct a miniature version of Descartes’ room and place the fly exactly where he said it was.
If we lived in a four dimensional universe, we would need 4 pieces of information to describe exactly where we were, but our brains can’t easily visualize that. One somewhat intuitive example, would be to consider time as a 4th dimension. You send your time travelling friend a message through space and time asking “Where are you?” and she replies “1625. I’m just leaving Rene’s place”. So time, in this example, is the 4th piece of information you need, to determine her location. You say “So, how was it?” “Not great,” she replies, “he kept getting distracted by this annoying fly!”
Latest Answers