What do you think shall a third dimension to the spiral model would represent?
399571
I think it is impossible but if it is possible than the theory of life has to be completely reexamined.
577191
The Z, Y and X axis governs organisation and function of empty space in 3D. There is time (the fourth dimension) which determines its function as well.
658780
We observe four dimensions everyday, three spatial and time.\n\nBut...theories such as string theory predict that the space we live in has in fact many more dimensions (frequently 10, 11 or 26), but that the universe measured along these additional dimensions is subatomic in size. As a result, we perceive only the three spatial dimensions that have macroscopic size.\n\nThis is not so strange as it sounds, which I'll show with an example. Imagine you are in an airplane, flying over sea. Seen from a height, the sea looks flat, two-dimensional. But when the plane looses height we start to perceive the waves, that move in a third direction we could see before.\n\nThe universe could be the same. Four macroscopic dimensions and a few more, hidden ones. We can only perceive them for instance, by the small effects their existence might have on subatomic particles.
40322
it is the theoretical dimension often refered to as Hyperspace and of Subspace.\n\nbasically if you fold the universal plane til the oopsite sides touch. and then drill a hole (wormhole)\nthrough to the other side the space inbetween is theoretically the 5th dimension.\n\nalso theorized is similar but that the 5th dimension is at the bottom of a black hole.  or on the other side.  \n\nONLY GOD THE CREATOR OF ALL THINGS knows for sure.
499903
it the way the math worked out, there are supposedely either 11 or 26 dimensions. this math is way beyond me, but the theory is still unproven so they may be any number.
637166
Our existence is defined by 3 spatial dimensions: up-down, left-right, and forward-backward.  Our bodies and senses are only able to conceive these three dimensions.  A fourth dimension really doesn't make sense, because there is absolutely no way we can point in a fourth direction at right angles to these three.\n\n But mathematically, there's no reason why a fourth, fifth, or more dimensions can't exist.  It's quite possible, mathematically, for other dimensions to exist - and it's very probable that, if they did exist, we could never experience them.  NEVER.  That's a bummer, but that's the way it is. \n\n A simple mathmatical 4th dimension mathmatical concept is the tesseract.  Think about these relationships and you may understand what a tesseract is: Line - Square - Cube - Tesseract.  It's a 4-D equivalent to a square (2-D) or cube (3-D).  Google "Tesseract" for more info.\n\n About a hundred years ago a guy named Ed Abbott was asking the same question you've asked.  In order to help him think about what more dimensions are like, why we can't experience them, and what might happen if we could, he wrote a book called "Flatland."  Flatland is a 2-dimensional world, inhabited by shapes like squares and triangles.  They can't comprehend a 3-D world (just like we can't comprehend 4-D)  But interesting things happen when some of those shapes do venture into a third dimension. \n\n Actually I was wrong when I said that humans can't comprehend 4 or more dimensions.  Additional dimensions come in pretty handy in physics.  The most common example of this is time, which lots of scientists treat as a 4th dimension.  But it's a 4th dimension in which we can only move one direction - forward.  By looking at time as a 4th dimension, it's a lot easier to understand most of the principles Einstein came up with in his theory of relativity.  \n\n Another area of science where multiple dimensions are handy is a theory of what everything (atoms, electrons, protons, etc. - the basic building blocks) are made of, called string theory.  It's really complicated, but basically if you think of every basic partical as a string vibrating in 10-dimensional space, then all of relativity and quantum theory works out pretty well.\n \n Finally - to answer your question - do I believe in different dimensions?  Yes.  I think a lot of what we as humans see as spiritual - everything from angels to heaven to how God can do what He does - is a lot more easier to explain if there's a spiritual realm close to us, but separated in a 4th dimension. But that's just my thoughts - it makes sense to me, but I'd have a hard time proving it to anyone.\n\n Great question!  Hopefully these answers help you comprehend it.  And if you're the first person to venture into the fourth dimension, then please come back, look me up, and take me with you!
921651
I don't think so. Does earth have an end? Nope, not in 2D. So universe may not have an end in 3D, but can be multidimensional
348301
'Flatland' must be a very exciting story. I wish I have read it.\n--a 2d world surely is a more interesting place compared to a 1d world. Roughly speaking, the added options would be 'left', 'right', 'up', 'down', which are far more entertaining than the 'forward' and 'backward' of the 1d space. \n-- the 3d world easily beats a 2d world and needs few comments. we get 'depth', just to name one thing we would miss in the 2d world. there are many others, no doubt.\n-- a 4d world would be an awesome place. before else, the question is what do we put on the 4th dimension. whatever would be it must have the dimension of space. so it can be time times velocity. let's say we neglect what velocity would mean and just focus on time. now things are going to heat up. what can we do with time, if we are able to use it just as we use the ordinary space? surely we would like to move forward and backward in time. still, I would not think we would be able to see .... ohhh wait a second!! this is really cool! I think I just got your idea of seeing 'inside and out, of every object and event in the entire univers'. yes, it must be this, because we would be able to travel in time, along the 4th direction, and we would be able to see things as they evolve; suddenly appearing in what was before an apparently empty space, turning into real objects and dissapear eventually. hehe I like it
261464
Additional info: I've talked to Holger Bech, one of the three founding fathers and Danish, and not even he believes in the theory. Basically, this is due to the String Theory postulating the existence of 9 dimensions. We can see that this is pretty far from the case, with there only being 3 physical dimensions and time, equaling 4. Furthermore, S.T. postulates that almost 300 of a specific grouping of particles exist. Experimental testing estimates that only 16 exist.
355582
As a previous poster mentioned... time is the fourth dimension.  You can easily visualize this when you imagine an object moving in three dimensional space.  The movement represents the fourth dimension.\n\nI think you are asking about a fifth dimension.\n\nPeople have mathematical models for up to eleven dimensions.  I suppose that a person who knew the mathematical models for these dimensions could imagine them visually.
432389
This is actually really interesting thesis. If we somehow managed to prove the fractal structure of the universe i guess we would resolve so many physical and astronomical questions...\n\nBut the mathematic functions for the fractals create structures on the two dimensional field which have an infinite property, therefore their dimension is somewhere between 2 and 3. \n\nBut if you're talking about space and atoms, you need to add the dimension of depth (third), dimension of time (4th) and probably some more dimensions that haven't even been discovered yet. \n\nBesides that, fractals are static and the universe is always shifting and changing and expanding. \n\nTherefore I think that with the knowledge and sources and technology we posses nowadays, it is impossible for us to figure out the fractal equation that determines the atoms in the same way as the galaxies.
136568
well, we all assume that time flows in one direction and one thing follows another. Maybe that's just the way we see it. Try to imagine that you were a cartoon, 2D on a page, you have no concept of the 3rd dimension. If we could se everything that had happened at once, time wouldn't be linear but I digress. In effect non-linear time means that one thing would not necessarily come after the other e.g. I wrote this 'before' you asked the question.
752121
If you're familiar with 2 D coordinates, 3 D coordinates should be no problem.  2 dimensions (with 2 (x,y) coordinates needed to describe a point) describe a flat surface (area) with length and width.  3 dimensions describe a space (volume) length, width and depth.  To describe a point 3 (x,y,z) values are needed.  4D adds time so that 4 values are needed to describe a point (in time).  Trigonometry and linear algebra become very important and helpful to solve problems.
359632
I'm guessing that you're asking what does it mean to say something is 2.5 dimensional, as opposed to 2 dimensional or 3 dimensional.  \n\nAnytime you have a fractional dimension like that, you're dealing with a fractal.  That's where the word "fractal" comes from.  The dimension for an object that is self-similar at many size scales in a complex way can be thought of as an extension of the obvious fact that a uniform object of unit length d in two dimensions has an area of d^2.  In three dimensions, a uniform object of unit  d (a cube with sides d units long) has a volume of d^3, and so on.  \n\nSo, you can generalize this concept and say that something has the dimensionality of whatever power the scale along one axis has to be raised to in order to give the area/volume/whatever.   Since a fractal object has repetition at all scales of some sort of complex pattern, the relationship between scale and total size, the dimensionality, is a non-integer.\n\nSo, for example, if you had a volume which had been "Swiss cheesed" by some sort of algorithmic removal of sub-volumes, and sub-volumes of the remaining volumes, and so on, and so on, to make a fractal sponge, it would have a dimensionality between 2 and 3.
799446
electrons can't line up in a plane they wouldn't all fit... unless it was like a big 747... or one of those military airbus things... and by 3d do you mean 2 spacial dimentions + time or 3 spacial dimensions? cause we already live with 3 spacial dmension (4 including time)
340934
I think there's several ways to conceptualize this stuff.  First of all, a number raised to a power doesn't necessarily involve any extra dimensions at all.  3^3 = 9, and 9 is a number that can be graphed on a one dimensional line.  Consider, what dimension does 4^1.5 exist on, the 1.5th dimension?  That doesn't make much sense.  The answer is simply 4^1.5 = 8, and 8 can also be graphed on a one dimensional line.  Or how about 3^pi?  Do we get the pi'th dimension?  Mmm, a dimension of pie...  Er, what was I saying?\n\nAnyway if we want to have a real cube in three dimensional space, we need at least three points in 3D space to represent it (actually we can represent it with 6 pieces of info instead of the 9 x,y,z's that make up the 3 points).  So what happens when we "cube" those three points, e.i., raise the points of that cube to the 3rd power?  We end up with a bigger cube in three dimensional space, just like we ended up with a bigger number in the one dimensional space example before.\n\nHowever, the answer to your question might possibly be 5 dimensions.  If you think of a number to the first power as being in the first dimension (on a line graph), and you cube it, it only moves up two dimensions, from the 1st to the 3rd (a cubic graph of space).  So taking a 3 dimensional number and cubing it would also move it up just two more dimensions from the 3rd to the 5th.  I can't think of any way to write that with a conceptually valid math expression, though.\n\nI'm not exactly sure how we'd get to 6 dimensions, unless you're thinking something like x^3*x^3 = x^(3+3) = x^6, but that doesn't seem reasonable to me, either.\n\nInstead, let's try this:\n3^1 = 3\n3^2 = 9, our previous number times our base number, 3.\n3^3 = 27, our previous number times our base number, 3.  So the cube of 3, our starting example, is 27.\n\nWhat's the cube of our cube (27)?  I.e., what's 27^3?\n27^1 = 27\n27^2 = 729 (27 times 27)\n27^3 = 19683 (729 times 27)\n\nSo for our final number, we want to find out how many "dimensions" it took to reach that, right?  So, what exponent of 3 does 19683 represent?  In other words, 3^x = 19683, what's x?  To find that out, we need to convert it to logarithmic form.  log_base3(19683) = x.  x = 9.  On a standard calculator, enter log(19683)/log(3) to find that out.  And you can check the answer by doing 3^9, which comes out to be 19683.  You can also follow that whole process using starting numbers other than 3.\n\nTo write it out more formally, (x^3)^3 = x^(3*3), by one of the properties of exponents, which = x^9.\n\nOr what if we did x^(3^3), which would be x^27.  27 "dimensions" seems far too excessive for the cube of a cube, to me.\n\nSo, my final answer is 9 "dimensions", though with the caveat that I think "dimensions" is misleading.
620431
4D is the fourth dimension. Some people think that is time, but those people are idiots. A line is one dimensional, a sheet of paper is two-dimensional, a cube, or anything with volume is three-dimensional. As you can see, a sheet of paper has a right angle in its corner, which if you place the line at the top, the sides are orthogonal(a fancy word for a right angle or perpendicular) to the line. A ream of paper(100 sheets) has a height that is orthogonal to both the top & sides of the paper. The fourth dimension is the next step in this progression, and is orthogonal to all of the previous dimensions. It continues like this, with each dimension being orthoganal to the previous n-1 dimensions.\n\nIt is not possible for most people to visualise 4D, as it exists outside of the realms of our perceptions. I had a math professor who knew someone who claimed to visualize 4D in his mind, but that's as far as it is possible to visualize. It is possible to work with numbers in 6D when talking about vector calculus.