Visualizing up to 10 dimensions | Hacker News Reader

Visualizing up to 10 dimensions

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41 pointsbradgessler27 comments

No, no, no. This blasted video (which just won't stay down) is anti-knowledge. It leaves the viewer with the satisfied feeling that they understand something deep and profound, while actually leaving them less informed about mathematics and physics simultaneously, in that it builds in resistance to the actually true and correct ideas. This has no value whatsoever, not even to attract people to the field, since the field it is espousing does not exist. In fact, it has less than no value. It is one of the most pernicious memes of this type I have ever seen.

Watch this video, if only so you know what sort of total bullshit you need to watch out for if you try to learn about real physics or math. See that feeling it gives you, that feeling of understanding? Train yourself to run from it, because it's wrong.

Insightful. I do wonder what you think of http://www.dimensions-math.org/ it seems to be more math focused, but is it too just techno-babble with pretty pictures?

It's good stuff, but it never gets around to talking about higher dimensional space; it feels unfinished.

So it's fake yet satisfying. Would it be like porn for the intellect, then?

If something claims to be scientific but leaves you with less questions than you came in with it's lying.

I agree. And they can't even pronounce Möbius strip. (The narrator says Mobius strip.)

Can you post a link to some research that conclusively proves string theory being completely, totally wrong? If not, then let string theory stand as a hypothesis, but don't totally dismiss it (or dismiss it, you may or may not be wrong).

Also, if you think somebody is going to take a 10 minute web video as the answer to the universe (everybody knows it 42) and a substitute for an ungodly amount of science, research, and knowledge then you have mistaken.

People who take issue with string theory do so precisely because what you're asking is impossible (in their view, anyway). Various technical properties of the theory (like the fact that it represents only a description of an uncountably infinite class of possible mathematical theories) make it impossible to disprove. See, for example: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/

None of which has anything to do with the problems in the video. Those are more of the "subtle, pernicious category mistake" variety.

The only thing that video has to do with string theory is that it contains the words "string theory". Go read "The Elegant Universe" instead. (Don't watch the PBS series, read the book. It's not the be-all, end-all of string theory, but it's actual knowledge, not anti-knowledge.)

Criticizing this video is not criticizing string theory; this video would be vastly improved if it actually contained any sort of truth about string theory.

Being short is not an excuse for being grotesquely wrong. Not simplified, which has its place, but wrong.

Aww, man. I am disappointed.

It completely ignores the important distinction between a temporal dimension and a spatial one; you might claim this little lie acceptable for pedagogical purposes, but to claim any isomorphism between this and the dimensions of string theory is balderdash.

A mathematician and a physicist are sitting next to each-other in a lecture about 11-dimensional space. The physicist scrunches up his nose, tilts his head to one side, and generally appears confused, while the mathematician smiles and nods as the lecturer writes equations on a blackboard. At some point, the physicist turns to the mathematician and asks, “How can you possibly follow this? I can’t visualize more than 3 or maybe 4 dimensions!” To which, the mathematician replies “Oh, it’s easy. Just visualize n dimensions, and then set n = 11.”

FYI, the 2D people "Flatlanders" thought exercise the video is using comes from one of the first sort of sci-fi books "Flatland" by Edwin Abbott Abbott [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland

Before I read Flatland, I had never seen a book which combines Victorian social satire with mathematical pedagogy.

For that matter, have you seen a book after that combines Victorian social satire with mathematical pedagogy?

the mix of the time, space, and 'possibility' dimentions is completely arbitrary and is not explained at all. There might as well just be 10 spacial dimensions, which this video doesn't help to visualize at all.

Well as I understood it the video highlighted that higher dimensions were about quantum implications (different possible universes) rather than anything spacial.

It is important to understand that the many-worlds interpretation makes no claims about where those worlds exist. The video proposes a heirarchical order to the universes --- a metaphysical filing cabinet. It labels them; it does not aid in their visualization.

[Note that all ten of string theory's dimensions would need to be reproduced in each alternate universe --- not the other way around.]

How many times is this going to appear on the front page of social bookmarking sites?

Old.

Not just old; old and bad.

As science it is bad. As a narrative (and flash video) it is not too bad. Though it should be treated like fiction and be seen on the same level as Scientology cosmology.

I think the problem then is that everything around it presents it as science fact (to those who don't know better).

Direct link to flash video:

http://revver.com/video/99898/imagining-the-tenth-dimension/

Isn't string theory unscientific?

Yes and no. There are currently no known ways to verify it epxerimentally, but, on the other hand, the theory has recently used to explain high-temperature superconductivity: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090706113702.ht...

And this video has nothing to do with string theory.

Agreed.

this sounds a bit like timecube

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