Is it all just molecular interactions?

[NiceCupOfTea]

We exist in space, X Y and Z but also T through the fact we are aware of time. I cannot visualise that dimension outside of 4-D visual cubes. I can see the extension of a cube etc, but can't get the rest nor why that cube should have that shape as to me it's a 3D shape with bits stuck onto it i.e. a cube stuck on to each face which is cheating. I'm totally stuck. I want advice on how to find a tutor to show me what the fourth dimesion 'looks' like. Ta

[jake-the-peg]

We're 3 dimensional beings so are never going to be able to visualise a 4th physical dimension as we have no experience of it.

If you do the classic drawing of a cube ( 2 squares and connect the corners ) your mind is tricked into seeing a cube because it's familliar with one and thinks it recognises it.

You've never come across a tesseract (4d cube) so the same trick won't work and it looks as you say like a cube with bits stuck on:

http://unfolding.apperceptual.com/figure8.gif

The classic on visualising dimensions was a book written over 100 years ago called "flatland a romance of many dimensions"

By considering a world of only 2 dimensions you can begin to see what a fourth dimension would be like.

It's on line here:
http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/eaa/FL.HTM

[Clanad]

As usual, jake's stuff is really good. but it might help to understand that a straight line (perhaps drawn on a sheet of paper) is, in reality, an unfolded right angle, which in turn is an unfolded two dimensional square, which in turn is... well, you get the picture. Fact is, many physicists postulate up to 12 or 13 (maybe more) dimensions which (as jake says) we can't really imagine but were never unfolded or completed during the period following the Big Bang but before inflation. The term unfolded is not my term... I first saw the term in an article by Alan Guth, a cosmologist, in his book The Inflationary Universe, although he maynot have originated the term...

[meredith101]

jakes pic caused my brain to implode

[NiceCupOfTea]

I see the 4-d image of a cube, but still

[NiceCupOfTea]

serious, I see 4D. I don't see 5D but I can 'see' the equations and I want to explain them but need help.

[nix-j-c]

my science teacher said that thers loads of dimensions. ther the normal three but ther 4th which is time and thers about 30 dimensions which also include dreams aparantly and imagination ect

[nix-j-c]

you cant see 4-d images 2d images u can see and 3-d object but u cant see time can you