NationStates Jolt Archive

How many dimensions does the universe have in your opinion [poll on the way].

n dimensions.

It seems to change depending on what sort of maths you come up with.

As for the dimensions I can actually perceive - four.

X.

How can we ever know for sure how many dimensions there are?

The number of dimensions is infinite.

6 to the power of 6, to the power of 6. Don't you people read Heinlien?

As many as you'd like, or care to bother about.

"the character is fully two dimensional!"

There are either 11 or 26 dimensions according to the best theories available (IMO). For those of you who are confused by this, you can probably just type "how many dimensions are there?" into Google, and find some references to the theories which show why as many as 11 or 26 dimensions may exist.

The number of dimensions in the universe is directly proportional to the amount of mind-altering substances in your body.

It depends on what you beleive or what math formula(s) you use.

It is most commonly accepted that there are 12, but only 4 that you can perceive. The other 8 are wrapped up so infinatley small, that even if we could perceive them it would be extremely difficult experience them.
It is my beleif, however that there could easily be an infinate number of dimensions.

One. But it looks like more, depends on the lightning.

I tried Googling "26 dimensions" and got this:

Flying Pyramids in Egypt (http://www.stuartwilde.com/articles/SW_articles_flying_pyramids.htm)

This is great bulldada, here. This whole rant of his apparently hinges on his having mistaken light passing through his camera aperture for uh... flying pyramids...

I wish we could have some quality nutbars like this here on NS General.

The Doctor measured The Tardis in "Castrovalva". He made measurements in 42 dimensions, much to Adric's surprise/dismay.

*Closes blinds, whispers*

How many dimensions would you like and what's it worth to you?

*Closes blinds, whispers*

How many dimensions would you like and what's it worth to you?
If you've got the spatial axes, I've got the cash.


"The universe?" *chuckles*
If there is a finite number of dimensions in each universe, but there are an infinite number of universes(?) within the multiverse, there are an infinite number of dimensions.

68.

Either 10 or 11, depending on which formulation of string theory you subscribe to (though the overarching M-theory seems to require 11, IIRC)

The answer is ALWAYS.... Fourty-Two.

The answer is ALWAYS.... Fourty-Two.

I concede the point. M-theory is thus clearly flawed.

6 to the power of 6, to the power of 6. Don't you people read Heinlien?
Heinlein is funny! My mum thinks he started to turn senile later on...you know, all that talk about incest. I loved his earlier books though, like Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land.

How about 1?

Think about it, a Turin Machine with a 1-dimensional arbitrarily-sized tape is capable of emulating a 2D arbitrarily-sized 'sheet-traversing' variant of the Turin Machine/Finite State Recogniser, which in turn is capable of emulating a 'volume-traversing' FSR (because if the size of the sheet is X * Y or the volume is X * Y * Z, then on a strip with just steps in the 'x' dimension a jump in the 'y' dimension of 'n' steps is n.X steps in the X dimension of X.Y sized one dimensional system and 'm' steps in the 'Z' direction is m.Y steps in the 'y' direction of the sheet or 'm.Y.X' steps in the 'x' direction of the tape, well, you get the idea, even if I've typoed this explanation into error).

Anyhow, back to the universe, any finite size of universe in n-dimensions can be represented in a finite universe of (n-1)-dimensions, and so on down until n=1.

Ok, so there's a minor logic problem in that supposition[1], but nothing that can't be conceptualised out of it.


Alternately, if the 'universal constants' of a universe, as visible to us mere mortals, and every other single thing that 'drives' how the universe has behaved since it's conception (or, looking outside of time, throughout it's entire span in time and space) can be boiled down to one single variable, then the nature of the universe can be boiled down to what that constant is (from which come the things that we 'see' as 'c', 'pi', 'e', 'G', etc, etc, etc, but which themselves may only be derivatives from something more 'basic') and thus while we can imagine an infinite number of universes, they are all actually represented on a one-dimensional line, each and every point of which represents the 'Aleph-constant' value, or whatever you'd care to use it, that describes how the whole construct works. Thus the multiverse is 1-dimensional, and each universe is technically 0-dimensional....

(Or maybe there's an 'Aleph-constant' and a 'Bet-constant' and a 'Gimel-constant', various combinations of which produce the so-called fundementals of each and every universe, in which case the multiverse is 3D. And none of this stops an 'apparent' 10, 11, 26 dimensions in our mortal observations of the construct it creates... ;))


[1] Apart from the sort of issues with the universe model that requires that a universe with just two space dimensions cannot support gravity, and that you need three time dimensions and one space dimension for 'true' tachyons to exist.

I thought there were 10: Two 4-dimensional dimensions seperated by a 2 dimensional membrane that only gravity can pass through, explaining why it was such a weak force. That is what popular science put forth awhile ago while explaining string theory.

9.27

The question is meaningless unless it is specific. Dimension can refer to any property. It has three space dimensions, one time dimension and God only knows how many extremely small rolled up dimensions.

Whoops, I means 11, not 26. You need 11 dimenstions to work M-Theory, and that's what I subscribe to.:D

There are seventy three half dimensions. A quarter of them are seven and one fourth sub-dimensions.