Translator: Maria K. Reviewer: Denise RQ
Ladies and gentlemen.
We commonly understand dimensions as a thing of the science fiction.
However, we mostly know that we live in a 3D world.
And when we're asked what the fourth dimension could be,
we're usually met with the answer of, "It is time."
However, how many of us actually know what such a thing means?
Let's start off pretty simple.
We as humans, we understand four different dimensions.
We understand a dot, which is the 0D.
That dot can go on to become a line, which is 1D.
That line could become a plane or a square, which is 2D.
And that's where can eventually become a 3D thing, a 3D object.
So, you go back and forth between these sort of dimensions.
In calculus, a very useful tool exists.
That tool is called integration.
Believe it or not, integration allows us to travel between different dimensions.
For example,
if we were to integrate a line on a graph, we would get the 2D area under it.
We've gone from 1D, which is a line, to the 2D area under it.
And if we were to integrate a 2D area on a 2D graph,
we would usually get the 3D volume under it.
So, following the same pattern, if we were to integrate a 3D object,
we would get a fourth dimensional object.
However, let's take this in very simple terms
for every who has not studied calculus.
Over here is a dot.
A dot, as agreed before, is 0D.
If we have a lot of dots next to each other like so,
we'd eventually end up with a line.
We've gone from 0D, all the way to 1D.
Now if we take that line and push it up a bit,
that line which is 1D,
if we try to add in a lot more lines under each other,
we'd eventually get a plane.
And that is how we've moved from 1D to 2D.
Now if we were to go further
- a square on SolidWorks - we can expand this into 3D.
Just like a book, a lot of pages that represent 2D planes,
stacked up against each other.
Now let's try visualizing the fourth dimension,
using this exact same method.
If we just had a lot of 3D volumes next to each other,
we just get a bigger volume, no?
For that glitch in the system, we're going to backtrack into the logic
to sort of visualize what 4D could be like.
If we bring in a 3D object, like so,
we would discover that that 3D object
is actually made up out of lot of different 2D planes,
just like a book.
If we were to take one of them out, we've gone from 3D to 2D.
Let's for the intention of this presentation
call this an element.
If we were to take that plane and dissect it just the exact same way,
we would get out of the 2D object,
one element out of that 2D object would actually be a 1D object, a line.
And if we were to go down a step further, and disintegrate that line,
we would get a single element of that line,
which is the zero dimension.
If we put all of these together,
we'd understand that the fourth dimension
is just a big collection of three-dimensional objects.
But the trick over here isn't to add them up physically.
It's to add them up in a way that makes sense.
Just like a movie, where you've got a lot of different frames
that are played by at a quick speed, you would see the flow of these frames.
You would see the movie.
Just like I were to move that arm,
every single 3D snapshot of me moving my arm put together
would create the flow of this 3D object, and you would eventually get movement.
So essentially, we could gather the entire time-frame
of a person, of a human being,
from the beginning of his life all the way till his death.
Maybe even further.
And put them into one specific reel.
And for all intents and purposes, we'll call this, for now,
the visualization of the fourth dimension.
If we were to use this information
to extrapolate different and further different dimensions,
we could go further to 5D.
But before going to 5D, let's go back to a bit of calculus.
If we were to integrate a 3D object, what do we get?
We'd usually get a mass flow rate, a volumetric flow rate,
anything that has some sort of connection to time,
which further provides the evidence we need to call this thing time.
And as we move along this flow of the 3D snapshots we have,
we'd eventually have to put these markings down,
which is what we call time, which is what we call one o'clock,
two o'clock, three o'clock, so on and so forth.
If we were to expand into 5D, let's say,
we would have to have a lot of elements out of the fourth dimension,
simply to put them into a fifth dimension.
And over here, we'd have four different time reels, if you will.
The first time reel; four is just a representative figure.
It has no physical meaning whatsoever.
First reel could be the Universe as we know it right now.
The timeline from the beginning till the end packed into one time reel.
However, the others would be a little changed.
What that means is every single element out of the fifth dimension,
which is a four-dimensional thing, would have different actions,
would have different things happen in it.
And if we bunch all of these things together
and put them into a box like so,
we can safely call this the fifth dimension.
A lot of you might recognize this as the parallel universe theorem.
Were we to look at a person in this 5D state,
we would be able to look at that person
in all the different choices you could make ever,
if you would go into mechanical engineering
instead of electrical engineering, and so on and so forth.
Let's take this as a step further.
Let's grab a bunch of these boxes, which are 5D, and together,
they theoretically, if they ever will, would create 6D.
Just like time-reels
where something changed between one time reel and another,
something would change over here,
and that would be our morphological structure, if you will.
So for example, in the first box, we would be just like we are right now.
That's where we are, in that first tiny box.
If you were to go to the second box,
I might have two arms instead of one, or two minds instead of one.
No one really knows.
We can only theorize about this.
However, if you were to look at a person in 6D,
so elements of 5D all group together, you would be able to see
all the different choices this person can ever make,
all grouped with how he could physically look like, like so.
If we were to expand this and take this to 7D, let's say.
This is where things get a little complicated.
Let's get rid of the boxes for a bit.
In 7D, what would change on the plane
if 7D would be the physical laws that govern our Universe?
For example, in one element of 7D, gravity could work a little different.
In another element of 7D, you could have the atomic structure change a little,
from electrons and photons and neutrons.
To get to the final level imaginable
with this specific theory or way of thinking, which is 8D,
8D would actually represent the concept of existence.
In one element of 8D, which is where we are,
we would understand this specific concept of existence,
but in other element, it might be a little different.
It's important to note
that even though we think we live in only the third dimension,
if the fourth dimension were to exist, if the eighth dimension were to exist,
we were one tiny speck in all of these dimensions put together.
We're not just in the third dimension.
Let's go to the basic definition of dimension, if you will.
If I exist in 1D, that literally means I can move in only one direction,
like seen above.
I'd be able to move left and right.
If I exist in 2D,
just like on a plane or a picture, let's say,
I'd be able to move left and right, up and down.
And because we live in the third dimension,
we are able to move in three different directions.
We are able to move left and right, up and down, forward and backwards.
That would mean,
if we were to extrapolate this into the fourth dimension,
we would need this extra way to walk through, this extra freedom.
And if we go back to the tape analogy
- just like a movie where you have it on your iPhone, let's say -
you can scroll back and forth between the frames on that video.
And that would be the exact same thing.
If we visualize a video made out of 3D snapshots of basically our lives,
we would be able to basically walk through the frames.
If I walk forward, I would be able to travel into the future.
And if I were to walk backwards, I would basically go to the past.
And if I were to stand still where I am, I would be able to freeze time to myself.
But here's the thing: if we walk across this time-frame,
we need to know how to get access to this lane of time,
to eventually time-travel.
For that, we'll need a little friend of mine:
The stickman figure.
Let's say we take a stickman figure, and we draw him on a piece of paper.
That stickman figure is a 2D object.
That paper is a 2D object.
And let's for intents of this presentation say
this stickman figure wants to exit his 2D world
and come into our 3D world.
What would he have to do?
We'd have to tell that stickman figure to push out of the paper
in order to get free out of the 2D world he lives in
and get out into the 3D world.
However, that stickman figure has lived his entire life
going left, right, up, and down.
He doesn't know what push out of the paper actually means.
And let's say he does push out of the paper.
We wouldn't be able to see him.
He wouldn't have any depth in our 3D world.
He would basically be undefined.
Just like this little guy, we are 3D human beings
that are attempting to break into the 4D world to time-travel,
and we have lived our entire lives
learning how to go left, right, up, and down, straight, and backwards.
Where can we find this place where we can push through
to break out of our current frame on the time-frame
and basically walk through time-frames and travel through time,
have the freedom to walk through time?
How do you do this?
For that, it might be a little too complicated,
because as I've said before,
we've only learned to go in three different directions.
And even if we were able
to break out of that specific frame and get out into that lane of time,
we wouldn't have any depth in the fourth dimension.
We would be undefined just like the stickman figure is in our 3D world.
So if you would like to time-travel,
I'd tell you to do the exact same thing I'd tell the stickman figure.
If I told the stick man figure to push out of the paper,
I would tell you to push out of that frame.
And just like the stickman figure, you will look around and say,
"What? Where? And how?"
We just are not 5D or 4D for this matter.
That would be it.
(Applause)