Google Earth In 4D

Rockgod writes to tell us about Google Earth's latest expansion. From the article: "Google skipped right past the third dimension and landed directly in the fourth (time) by offering historical maps on Google Earth. Now you can travel back in time — for example, I am looking at the globe of 1790. Don't expect detailed high resolution photography from days gone by, but it's still interesting to see old maps overlaid on the satellite imagery of today." I suppose a link to Earth4 would have been good.

Comments

Pangea?

[Ingolfke]

Where's pangea? Come on Google... get with the program.

Re:Pangea?

[Anonymous Coward]

I already knew this because the next update lets you see the future. ;)

Re:Pangea?

[__aaclcg7560]

That would be upsetting the Intelligent Designers. Haven't you heard? The Earth is only 6,000 years old.

Re:Pangea?

[jlf278]

Totally lame, the Paleozoic Era was a geological snooze-fest. Call me when they get some decent Big Bang maps up.

Re:Pangea?

[McNihil]

Awww... Flamebait??? This was Funny 5+ FCOL!

Re:Pangea?

[Sax Maniac]

Why bother? Pangaea is not a panacea.

Re:Pangea?

[archen]

Actually that wouldn't be to hard. Get two of the brightest flashlights you can find, then stick them right up to your eye sockets. Wherever you look it should be the same blinding light.

Re:Pangea?

[Ingolfke]

Not all intelligent design people believe that that Earth is young. The basic premise of Intelligent Design is that the universe is too complex for it to just have happened... that doesn't speak to who or how it was created or how long it happened to take.

Either way though... they should probably have a checkbox for users to select which theory they believe in (young earth or old) and then if they select "young" they can get a nice error message.

Re:Pangea?

[superyooser]

It's not upsetting at all. I took Google Earth back to 3760 BC and confirmed that dry land did not appear until Day 3.

Shows how old those damn satellites must be :-)

[cheros]

It's going to be interesting how the usual historical inaccuracies are dealt with, including moving river deltas and/or later removal of objects such as the British Echelon site, Menwith Hill :-)

Re:Shows how old those damn satellites must be :-)

[tocs]

I think it will be interesting to see how the usual historic inaccuracies will be dealt with.

I recently spent several months looking over historic maps around Newark Bay in New Jersey. Most of what we looked at came from NOAA and while I have a great deal of confidence in the abilities of the mapmakers, there are still many issues having to do with datums and resolution that I never thought about before I started working with historic maps. When you deal with charts and maps you really have to start thinking about things like accuracy verses precision.

Here are a couple interesting documents about the accuracy of charts
Behind the Accuracy of Electronic Charts--What Every Mariner Should Know about Electronic and Paper Charts
Chart Accuracy

Re:Shows how old those damn satellites must be :-)

[Courageous]

It's going to be interesting how the usual historical inaccuracies are dealt with...
------

What's really unconscionable is the way they remove all the incriminating evidence from Area 51.

*blink blink*

C//

Re:Shows how old those damn satellites must be :-)

[LifesABeach]

I would be very curious about what the planet looked like during the Ice Age 30,000 years ago. The water line was about 300 feet down, and there is some evidence that man made structures exist under our current low tide line. Also, there is one story that is common to all cultures, that of the great flood; Maybe there is more to this tale than meets the eye.

Hey, Christopher!

[Rob T Firefly]

It turns out we can't get to India that way. Whew, thank goodness we didn't waste an insanely long and difficult journey just to come back and look stupid in front of Queen Isabella.

Re:Hey, Christopher!

[meringuoid]

It turns out we can't get to India that way. Whew, thank goodness we didn't waste an insanely long and difficult journey just to come back and look stupid in front of Queen Isabella.

Signed, the Basque Fishing Consortium

well

[thejrwr]

wow, the dev team for google sure must be having fun, i mean come on, when you PAID to make new features when ever you want, no wonder working for google is a prized job (I'm only 10, if my grammer is bad, well oh well)

Re:well

[DkY]

Man your grammer is better then most of the proper grownups here :)

Re:well

[slyfish]

no, no, it's just grammer. the grammar is awful :)

Re:well

[Plutonite]

It is illegal for 10 yo to post on slashdot. Leave quickly!

Re:well

[Shortgeek]

How about 11 year olds? Do I need to leave too?

Re:well

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Now.

today's maps will be historical

[Speare]

I was thinking the other day about this. As new photos become available on Google Earth, the old ones will be removed... or pushed back in time, just like a CVS repository. A hundred years from now, you'd be able to walk the repository backwards and watch the suburbs shrink, the global waters recede, the forests regrow and the ice shelves stitch themselves together. (No guarantees expressed or implied.) Of course, Google would be one of those stodgy old companies that you wonder why they didn't implode in the nanostock scandals of 2065, but I digress.

Re:today's maps will be historical

[Gothmolly]

You really think all those will happen, or that there will BE a Google Earth in 100 years? The suburbs will grow, the oceans will rise, the deserts will expand, and the world will continue its downward descent into barbarism as China and the Middle Eastern countries mop up the US and Europe, only to collapse under the weight of their own savagery. In 100 years, it will be illegal to have a computer.

Re:today's maps will be historical

[Skater]

Attention all planets of the Solar Federation...

That kind of thing?

Re:today's maps will be historical

[IflyRC]

You can get that now if you play a video of Al Gore backwards. There's also a freaky backware message. "Believe (2 second pause) in global warming. We must put earth (2 second pause) in a lock (5 second pause) box."

Re:today's maps will be historical

[radl33t]

No thanks, I will choose free will!

Re:today's maps will be historical

[c6gunner]

Won't happen. While there have been numerous hiccups on our way through history, human progression hasn't ever seen any massive reversion. Even if the US and most of the western world gets wiped out by Islamic savagery, their society would become more liberal eventualy, and in the meantime you'd have countries like China to pick up the slack. I know it's not much comfort to you, but even if our society dies out, many of our ideals and most of our technological accomplishments will live on in other nations.

Re:today's maps will be historical

[Ninjaesque One]

. . . Fall of Rome?

Re:today's maps will be historical

[famebait]

The "darkness" of the dark ages is severely exaggerated. True, the loss central power resulted in a lot of warring that had previously been confined to the outer frontiers of the empire, but most of the other "bad things" about it were equally present in roman society. The roman empire was not as enlightened and civilized a time as many seem to think. Their great strength was in military strategy and administration, but there was very little technological and philosophical progress (compared to its duration) from what the greeks already had. In fact the middle ages were much more productive in that department.

Re:today's maps will be historical

[c6gunner]

You see, that's my point. When Rome fell things got worse for a while, but their technology, their teachings, their culture, even their political system, all of it either continued to be used or was preserved and reused later. In modern times, there wouldn't even be any dark ages because it would require the destruction of not just the US, but also Canada, Australia, all of Europe, and much of Asia. No matter what, human-kind will continue marching upwards. There's only a few things that could really affect us as a race, and that's either global nuclear warfare, massive change in solar activity, or getting hammered by a really big asteroid.

Re:today's maps will be historical

[Venik]

Or next Thursday Russia will bomb everybody back into the Stone Age, when during lunch in his Kremlin office Putin spills some borscht on his nuclear suitcase.

Re:today's maps will be historical

[maxume]

If there is a nanotechnological battle in the future, it won't take place on an abstract market, it will be for the sun itself.

Re:today's maps will be historical

[stud9920]

Rome:Barbarians:Arabs::West:Arabs:China

Re:today's maps will be historical

[zenslug]

The poster was talking about viewing the images in reverse, going backward in time. If the oceans rise, then viewing satelite pictures of them in reverse would make them appear to recede.

Re:today's maps will be historical

[rcastro0]

> The "darkness" of the dark ages is severely exaggerated.

Well, Schumpeter would probably call the Dark Ages, post Rome,
a period of "creative destruction". That being, of course, a
term describing the main positive dynamic of Capitalism.

So it could be argued that it was that precise turmoil that
was able to breed over time, darwin-style, the best states,
organizations, philosophies, art, war techs, which ultimately
brought the renaissance and the modern world in which we live
today.

Would we count that messy period as progress, though ?
Maybe...

Re:today's maps will be historical

[RealGrouchy]

A hundred years from now, you'd be able to walk the repository backwards and watch the suburbs shrink, the global waters recede, the forests regrow and the ice shelves stitch themselves together.

Thanks for the reminder.

I should really get off my duff and get more active in my community, so that hopefully some of these things might happen when we play time forward, too!

- RG>

Re:today's maps will be historical

[Opie812]

In 100 hundred years, the human race will make its greatest and most horrific discovery:


Solent Green is PEOPLE!!!!!

Re:today's maps will be historical

[ejp1082]

I'm not sure past performance is a predictor of future results. There have most certainly been societies that wiped themselves out before. The key difference is that these were all isolated - when you have a hundred different independent civilizations, some can fall while the others continue to rise.

For all intents and purposes, the human race is one single civilization now, with more interdependencies between opposite ends of the globe than anyone can possibly be aware of. We also, for the first time in history (meaning in the last fifty years or so) have the capacity to affect globe-spanning changes. If our society dies out, we may very well take the human race with us.

Re:today's maps will be historical

[Petrushka]

all of it either continued to be used or was preserved and reused later.

That is simply untrue. Some select parts were preserved, if you're lucky and look only for the things you already know were preserved. To take one example: of all the official communications between the imperial administration and provincial governments, which certainly amounted to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of letters and other communications over the course of centuries, the grand total of what survives is two communiques. Two. To take a second example, our knowledge of the division of powers between different branches of the republican government is extremely sketchy in some very important areas. To take a third example, very little is known about Roman technological developments or literary works after about 100 CE.

Sure, you can change the goalposts and say, "Well, all the influential and important things survived"; but that's just a tautology (something can't be influential if it doesn't survive, therefore of course anything that does not survive is also not influential).

The Middle Age didn't use to be called "dark" because it was a decline -- though undoubtedly in some respects it was -- but because surviving information about it is even sketchier than surviving information about the Roman period. (There's still a lot, in both cases, to be sure.) The same goes for other "dark" ages in human history, such as the Greek "dark" age, which likewise used to be called "dark" not because it was a decline but because information is sketchier for the period 1200-800 BCE than for the periods on either side.

A link to Google Earth would have been useful

[Anonymous Coward]

http://earth.google.com/earth4.html

Re:A link to Google Earth would have been useful

[aliendisaster]

Did you read the article? The first sentence had a link.

Re:A link to Google Earth would have been useful

[nospam007]

Did you read the article?...
---
you must be new here.

The fourth dimension has nothing to do with time

[Anonymous Coward]

The fourth dimension has nothing to do with time. It's another plane that intersects X, Y, and Z.

4th Spacial Dimension

[onyx00]

I would have been more impressed if Google had been able to achieve the 4th spacial dimension.

Come on Google, I thought you guys were "innovators"

Re:4th Spacial Dimension

[MountainMan101]

They couldn't. The 4th spacial dimension is encumbered with patent rights. Only Microsoft and/or Novell customers can use it.

Re:4th Spacial Dimension

[ludo$06]

Where do you want to go today?

Re:4th Spacial Dimension

[Kaetemi]

stupid 4th spacial dimension >_>

Re:4th Spacial Dimension

[Mike Peel]

Or alternatively: When do you want to go today?

Re:4th Spacial Dimension

[RealGrouchy]

They couldn't. The 4th spacial dimension is encumbered with patent rights. Only Microsoft and/or Novell customers can use it.

So that's where Windows put all my critical files!

- RG>

Re:4th Spacial Dimension

[Lord Balto]

Spatial, Einstein.

Re:4th Spacial Dimension

[dastardly_villain]

Mod parent up! You just made me shoot coffee through my nose!

Almost there

[sharkey]

I am SO looking forward to Google Tesseract Beta!

mmmmm theory

[Anonymous Coward]

How is Time the fourth dimension again, then? I think of XYZ axes as a tad different than time.... wouldn't Euclidian space count as one dimension and time as another?

So I can assume

[shirizaki]

Giant sea monsters populate places where no one visited?

OMG AMERICA IS SNAKES!

Re:So I can assume

[dr_dank]

I hope they offer driving directions to the "Here be dragons" area.

Re:So I can assume

[Anonymous Coward]

So would that be 'Snakes on a Plain' ?

Re:So I can assume

[Lars T.]

Americans on a plane?

Re:So I can assume

[blake3737]

Snakes on a Map? Snakes on A nation? Snakes on a Colony?

Medieval London here I come!

[Rik Sweeney]

I can't wait to see what London really looked like in Medieval times, the satellite imagery back then must have been... wait a second, there's not going to be any satellite imagery for back then would there? Computers hadn't been invented so what would they store the pictures on?

Silly me.

Re:Medieval London here I come!

[Anonymous Coward]

They flung the more unpopular scribes and cartographers into the air with "Ye Olde Upsee-Daisy Catapulte" and told them to relate what they saw. Apparently, much like in today's office space, these critical documents were plagued by output errors.

Re:Medieval London here I come!

[Hijacked Public]

Glass plates mostly.

I'm sure dagguerotypes would handle space just fine if they could have figured out the logistics of getting them up there.

Re:Medieval London here I come!

[oldave]

Papyrus

Re:Medieval London here I come!

[mikael]

They may not have had satellite imagery, but many artists and painters were hired to draw maps and paintings of the city to precise scale in perspective view.

Here is a supersized scan of a medieval map of London from the 1600's. Using some projective texture mapping/morphing, it should be possible to place this map on top of the Google maps of London.

Re:Medieval London here I come!

[sdsichero]

Come on, UFOs have been visitng since at least the time of the Ancient Egyptians... They must have had computers.

Re:Medieval London here I come!

[drsquare]

1600 isn't medieval.

Re:Medieval London here I come!

[mikael]

Tell that to the University of Pittsburgh - not me - their web page link classifies this document as "medieval".

I agree with you though, according to the most dictionaries, in a historical context "medieval" is equivalent to saying "The Dark Ages" (up to 1500 at the latest). This map was written in 1593.

Re:Medieval London here I come!

[drsquare]

I don't know what people at Pittsburgh would know about the medieval period, considering that town wasn't founded until centuries after.

Hah!

[MyLongNickName]

I tried to go back to 7000 BC, and didn't see anything. You scientist types can try to explain this one away, but we all know what it REALLY means.

Re:Hah!

[ronanbear]

Yeah. The Flying Spaghetti Monster was obscuring the camera as a practical joke on creationists.

Re:Hah!

[ChromeAeonium]

I saw something. A multicolored, spinning Mac wheel. We all know what THAT must mean.

4th dimension!?

[Bananatree3]

You think there's a 4th dimension? There is depth, height and length...count'em 3 dimensions.

Come on onyx00, get with reality.

Re:4th dimension!?

[suggsjc]

reality...

You forget, most /.'ers don't have much interaction with this "reality" that you speak of...

Re:4th dimension!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then explain the existence of polychora...

huh !

[rahulkool]

They are taking over the world ...... :-O

Google and Wikipedia = sum of human knowledge

[BrentRJones]

In the near future we will be using Web services for all human knowledge and culture.
    History, Geography, Government, Music, Literature, Research, Art, Education...

    We will all routinely wear earpieces and wrist displays and the words telephone, television, media, network will disappear just as the words {carriage} footman, {switchboard} operator and typist. George Orwell got so many, many things right in _1984_ especially Newspeak.

    A Brave New World, NOT! Just a routine upgraded world.

Re:Google and Wikipedia = sum of human knowledge

[Jugalator]

Umm... How does good and plentiful access to human knowledge and culture relate to an Orwellian vision? :-S

Re:Google and Wikipedia = sum of human knowledge

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple, when all this human knowledge and culture come from one central location and this central location determines what you can and cannot get access to. I wonder how many people will get the red stapler reference if all copies of the movie Office Space are deleted and you wait a generation or two. Imagine removing all the references to the word stapler and red and only allow people to communicate with each other using words which are sanctioned in the central database. Good and plentiful access to only one record in a database does not make a fully informed user/human being. Think before you reply.

Now what would be really cool...

[perrin]

I wish Google Earth would add the ability to go really far back in time, and see what the Earth (probably) looked like in prehistoric times. Always wanted to watch the movement of the tectonic plates in fast forward on my own PC...

Re:Now what would be really cool...

[suds]

I realised i went too far back when I noticed this in my bedroom...
http://www.ncrr.nih.gov/newspub/apr01rpt/Apr01gif/ ANDi-monkey.gif

Re:Now what would be really cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

They should link up here (there are others, too):
http://www.scotese.com/newpage13.htm

Re:Now what would be really cool...

[Muffhead]

Try this.

Needs GE 4 to work.

Re:The fourth dimension has nothing to do with tim

[Per Abrahamsen]

> The fourth dimension has nothing to do with time. It's another plane that intersects X, Y, and Z.

Usually denoted "t"... :-)

Earth in 4d?

[Anonymous Coward]

it is called turning off the computer and *actually* go outside. =)

Re:Earth in 4d?

[Anonymous Coward]

now why would anyone want to do that?

Great!

[uwbbjai]

Indiana Jones can now look for lost cities from the comfort of his computer.

Re:Great!

[WATYF]

Actually, you have no idea how true that is... it's already happened before. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4267238.st m WATYF

4D debate

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the surface of the Earth is a 2D manifold, a function of radius parameterized by two angles. So, this is only 3D.

I hate that I know that.

Re:4D debate

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not

Re:4D debate

[lahvak]

You only disproved his parametrization by two angles claim, the important part about the surface of Earth being 2D manifold still holds.

Now can somebody calculate the genus or the Earth surface? Counting man-made bridges and tunnels, of course.

Re:4D debate

[Bob-taro]

I hate that I know that.

If you hate knowing geeky things, you shouldn't read slashdot!

If it makes you feel any better, though, I think you're wrong to reduce it to a 2D manifold. Google maps includes elevation data and 3-D building models.

Re:4D debate

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, I don't hate that I know that...topology is awesome.

Anyway, elevation doesn't change the 2D parameterization of the Earth--you specify any coordinates (say latitude and longitude) with two parameters. So, elevation is a parameterized function, el = f(long, lat). If you could explore the Earth's core, that would be something else entirely. The 3D buildings are a good twist...I think of them as map overlays, like roads, rivers, or other information, though.

Someone mentioned land bridges as violations to the 2D parameterization...OK, but I'm pretty sure that is not in Google Earth.

Re:The fourth dimension has nothing to do with tim

[Doctor Crumb]

So, which one is the third dimension? X, Y, or Z? The point is how many dimensions you are using, not the order they are in.

Not yet, but working on it.

[pr0digy25]

Don't expect detailed high resolution photography from days gone by...
They are working on it... by using a unparalleled level of space-telescope technology and the ability to propel the vehicle way beyond the speed of light, the Google-scope will eventually outrace the 1000's of year old visible light from earth, turn tail and start receiving this historic visual information. And before you say "it will take light years to get the information back", two words my friend... "gravity waves".

Re:Not yet, but working on it.

[bcmm]

Er, in relativity gravity waves are assumed to propagate at the speed of light.

So I'm afraid your idea obviously won't work.

Re:Not yet, but working on it.

[Anonymous Coward]

And before you say "it will take light years to get the information back",

You mean years?

two words my friend... "gravity waves".

Gravitational waves travel at the speed of light.

Sorry for the humorless response to your joke, my Slashdot nerdy correction instincts took over.

Re:Not yet, but working on it.

[Anonymous Coward]

We just have to find a set of giant mirrors each spaced about a light year apart.

Re:Not yet, but working on it.

[Bob-taro]

Actually, it wouldn't even be that difficult. All you'd have to do it find a giant mirror built by intelligent aliens 1000s of light years away and look at the earth in it. The reflection you saw would be 1000s of years old and you wouldn't have to go anywhere to see it!

Re:Not yet, but working on it.

[pr0digy25]

So I'm afraid your idea obviously won't work.

Obviously you aren't living in my universe.

Re:Not yet, but working on it.

[pr0digy25]

All you'd have to do it find a giant mirror built by intelligent aliens 1000s of light years away...

That's even better... let's get a funding proposal put together on this one.

Re:Not yet, but working on it.

[deanoaz]

Maybe just write some software that analyzes all the reflected light from objects in space and finds all the relevant bits to reconstruct views of the earth from various elapsed times.

For example, if you found a reflection from a piece of ice 5 light years from Earth, the reconstructed image from it would be of Earth 10 years in the past.

Except that with all the relative motion light would not just go from the Earth to an object and back to the Earth to be viewed again. You'd have to create an accurate computer model of all the motion involved first and use that to plan how to intercept and decode your reflected light.

Never Mind.

A good application

[gavinpquinn]

I think this is a neat application of Google Mapping. Its nice seeing the API being used, as I'm a mapping fan on sites like http://www.grapheety.com and others.

Historical fun.

[B5_geek]

This would be a fun way for history teachers to teach. Imagine Google "Points of Interest":

Jack The Ripper victoms in olde London.
Ghangis Khan/Alexander the Great conquest & warpath
Marco Polo route to the East
Or my personal favorite; combine this data with the Geneology Project to map out the paths that early humans took out of Africa.

Re:Historical fun.

[StoatBringer]

Jack The Ripper victoms in olde London.

When the satellite cameras are good enough to resolve facial features, the identity of the Ripper will finally be discovered!

Re:Historical fun.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

... the site where my villagers researched ARMOR...

Re:Historical fun.

[jeffme]

When you try to find a map of say... the USSR online, you'll realize how important a tool like this is for teaching history. The Soviet Union fell before the widespread adoption of digital maps, so finding a digital map of the pre-Cold War Soviet Block isn't as straightforward as you might think. A key to making impressions on people's minds, however, won't just be the visual presentation of static information, it will be the animated presentation of information against a historical backdrop. How and where did the plague spread, and why? Was it ever really true that the sun never set on the British Empire? What was going on in the rest of the world at the same time the Indus Valley civilizations were kicking off? What did Japanese art look like during the Impressionist period? Without turning this into a cog sci thread, understanding how all of these questions are answered would be enhanced with geospatial and chronological relationships. The next question is the incentive to create useful educational materials - textbook manufacturers don't share it, that's for sure. For a shameless plug to an undernourished open source project in this area, check out: www.gwhat.org. Apologies in advance... trust me, there's no profit motive.

If it's not spatial it's not 4D

[Jekler]

The idea of time as a 4th dimension has been propagated erroneously. People who have no concept of the significance of a 4th dimension have grabbed hold of this concept and ride it into the ground.

Under the definition that time is a 4th dimension, Guild Wars, Quake, Morrowind, World of Warcraft, Everquest 2... they would all have the appearance of being a 4D games. Heck, checkers would actually be a 4D game.

Furthermore, spatial dimensions are interchangeable. Width/Height/Depth are all the same thing and only have meaning in relation to the others. Time is not interchangeable with the 3 known spatial dimensions. You can't have an object composed of x, y, t and still have the same dimensions as an x, y, z object. (3ft x 3ft x 3s) doesn't mean the same thing as (3ft x 3ft x 3ft)

Things do not sound inherently cooler by calling them 4D. Web 2.0 has brought with it many things, but a 4th dimension is not one of them. I'd rant some more but my 4D microwave has finished cooking my 4D hotpocket, and I need to grab that sucker before the 4th dimension causes it to be misshapen with lost heat!

Re:If it's not spatial it's not 4D

[wjsteele]

Heck, checkers would actually be a 4D game.

I think you mean that Checkers would be a 3D game (as there is no Z axis used in the game.)

Bill

Re:If it's not spatial it's not 4D

[EnderGT]

Actually checkers would only be 3D - there's no vertical dimension in play, really.

Re:If it's not spatial it's not 4D

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm... playing checkers without a z-axis? come on guys... how do you pick up your pieces?

Re:If it's not spatial it's not 4D

[EnderGT]

Didn't see this post before I made mine. Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought this way.

Re:If it's not spatial it's not 4D

[EnderGT]

Picking up your pieces and moving them has no real bearing on gameplay. The entire game could be represented in two dimensions (not counting time) with no loss of playability.

Re:If it's not spatial it's not 4D

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of time as a 4th dimension has been propagated erroneously.

Minkowski would like a word with you. You seem to have missed the point of relativity.

Time is not interchangeable with the 3 known spatial dimensions.

In relativity, space and time are unified into one 4-dimensional spacetime. You can always tell the difference between a spacelike interval and a timelike interval, but diffferent observers disagree on what specifically "the time dimension" is: a purely temporal separation according to one observer can be partly temporal and partly spatial to another observer. This is known as the "relativity of simultaneity". Mathematically, there is no unique way of slicing 4D spacetime into 3D space + 1D time; there are infinitely many ways of doing so, each corresponding to a different observer.

Re:If it's not spatial it's not 4D

[Anonymous Coward]

All a dimension is is a coordinant for defining an object/event. Time, the fourth dimension, is called the temporal dimension, and is not spatial. Therefore it isn't swappable now is it?

x,y,z,t all define a specific "place" in space-time based on an arbitrary origin. t has no origin, except one you arbitrate, just like x,y, and z. Big Bang, birth of Jesus? Whatever you want.

You can even have more than three spacial dimensions if you want to be redundant in 3-space.

You can add a totally fictional dimention like value of coolness if you want. It's all arbitrary and just coordinants for defining an object or event.

Re:If it's not spatial it's not 4D

[Spluge]

Of course 3s isn't interchangeable with 3ft when measuring a 4 dimensional object.
Everyone knows that 3s is the same as 3m not 3ft. You've got to use si units for these things to work out neatly.

Re:If it's not spatial it's not 4D

[Anonymous Coward]

Time is not interchangeable with the 3 known spatial dimensions.

Unless you have crossed the event horizon of a black hole. Then time and spatial dimensions get swapped. :)

Re:If it's not spatial it's not 4D

[chrisb33]

While I agree that 4D is being used more as a buzzword than anything else, time is in fact considered as a fourth dimension in physics. You can look at special relativity if you want to understand how time and the spatial dimensions can be "interchanged":

In the geometry of special relativity, a fourth dimension, time, is added, with units of c, so that the equation for the differential of distance becomes:
ds^2 = dx_1^2 + dx_2^2 + dx_3^2 - c^2 dt^2
If we wished to make the time coordinate look like the space coordinates, we could treat time as imaginary: x4 = ict . In this case the above equation becomes symmetric:
ds^2 = dx_1^2 + dx_2^2 + dx_3^2 + dx_4^2

Special relativity goes on to say that you can exchange time and spatial coordinates using the Lorentz transform, which preserves the length of the 4D position vector.

If the special relativity example seems too bizarre, just think in terms of locating an event. If I wanted you to come to my party, I would tell you 4 pieces of info - the x,y,z, and t coordinates of the party. Each of these degrees of freedom is a dimension.


What's much more annoying to me are the "4D" shows that are 3D plus some user interaction (getting water shot at you or something like this). That is a misuse of "4D".

Re:If it's not spatial it's not 4D

[hankwang]

Special relativity goes on to say that you can exchange time and spatial coordinates using the Lorentz transform, which preserves the length of the 4D position vector.

But on the other hand, the Lorentz transform has very different properties compared to for example a rotation in 3 dimensions, just because of that minus sign for time in the equations. A pair of points in xyzt space that are outside each other's light cone can never be transformed such that they end up inside each other's light cone. Also, a non-euclidian space geometry can be thought as being a hypersurface embedded in a higher dimensional Euclidian space, but that's something that you can only do for spatial dimensions, not for time dimensions. So in these respects, the time dimension is fundamentally different from the space dimensions.

Re:If it's not spatial it's not 4D

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, what about 3d chess then?

Re:If it's not spatial it's not 4D

[The One and Only]

The same way you move or swap values in a one or two dimensional array. Checkers is an abstract game distinct from its representation in physical 4D spacetime (i.e. on a physical board).

Re:The fourth dimension has nothing to do with tim

[neuro_guy]

I don't think so, Tim!

How long before MS copies this?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just about the only thing they can do: Copy. Maybe that's why they are always talking about how innovative they are - they know they are not, they know they have never been, but they think that if they repeat the lie often enough it will become true - or, at least, people will believe it.

Wrong

[Bryansix]

Google skipped right past the third dimension and landed directly in the fourth

Google already had 3-D models of some major cities as an option you could turn on in Google Earth. This included models of most of the sky scrapers that would really pop out on a format like the streaming GIS system that Google Earth is.

Still Waiting

[dmomo]

For the "Earth is Flat" Version. Oh, wait. maps.google.com

Re:Still Waiting

[Petrushka]

Try Microsoft's Virtual Earth - that world has edges.

Silver Surfer?

[bmalnad]

http://www.4d.com/ ... Too obscure?

Chronoogle?

[mmalove]

Wonder what they will call this feature?

When I first read the sub. title, I thought they had superimposed some kind of 4th spacial dimension on google earth, and was thinking, why the hell would you do that?

Interesting concept they have here, and going forward it will be much cooler now that we have satellites actually photographing the earth instead of reliance on a single explorer's math skills.

Ok, the scene is ripe - bring on the nukes! We can do before and after pictures now!

For something a little more like 4D

[kaszeta]

I'm underwhelmed by the actual article, since it's just a bunch of overlays of historical data. Google Earth has had these (at least for San Francisco) since the early betas of Google Earth 4.

More interesting, and more 4D (in that it gives you an actual slider you can play with) is Google Earth 4 Beta's timeline feature. I was hoping the article would've been something along those lines (since I've been having lots of fun displaying aircraft tracking data in Google Earth with their timeline slider activated).

Smaller Time Increments

[Anonymous Coward]

What I've always wanted to see was smaller time increments. To be able to look at an area and select a season or month to view it in would be great. You could watch the fields go from brown and untilled, to greed to snow-covered.

And what about night satellite photos? Wouldn't it be cool to switch to night view? I know that would help me to find things in the middle of nowhere if nothing else.

Imagine if it could go back in time...

[Anonymous Coward]

- Awesome! You can see the smoke from Napoleon's cannons!
- So that's how Hiroshima looked after they dropped the bomb...
- Look at all that rainforest before the 20th century...
- It's the original impact crater of that big meteorite!
- Wow, look how small Chicago is...
- See!? See!? This proves evolution!!!...oh wait...it won't let me go backwards by seven days?!?

As in stephansmap.org

[sugarmotor]

That'll fit nicely with stephansmap.org or the spacetimebrowser
at spacetimebrowser.org

Stephan :)

Outdated pop-culture reference

[bennomatic]

Well, across, the farm belt, that would mean we have...

Snakes on a Plain!

Pfft, wheres Atlantis

[SlashGeO]

Now that would be amazing :)

Re:Pfft, wheres Atlantis

[multipartmixed]

It's in the Pegasus Galaxy.

Duh!

Oblig SOAP - Can't Help It

[Anonymous Coward]

LOOK! I'm tired of all these motherfucking snakes in this motherfucking country!

Re:The fourth dimension has nothing to do with tim

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up Minkowski space sometime.

Time, GIS and Virtual Globes

[Lord Satri]

A shameless copy of a previous slashgeo.org story:
Time for Time in GIS
Christian Spanring links to a FOSS4G2006 open document presentation named It's About Time for Time. From the abstract: ""The weakness of current cartography is its poor representation of time. The surface of the earth is treated as a static thing." (Anselm Hook) [...] There are numerous experiments, but little solid support in tools or data structures for representing the 4th dimension (when we're still getting used to the 3rd dimension in GIS)." The time capabilities of GeoRSS and Google Earth are mentioned. Previous poll on time.

And why not another pertinent one?
Time Tracking Now Included in Google Earth 'Free'
All Points Blog links to a ZDNet article where we learn the time tracking tool in Google Earth Pro will now be available in Google Earth Free (and GE Plus, of course!). From the article: "The feature in which a slider is used to scroll through time [...] now features a simplified interface. [...] showing how scientists, who had tracked the movements of a whale shark using GPS, had then mapped the creature's path using the application. Business uses could include fleet tracking or mapping the movements of transport infrastructure according to Google. Jones also described how the new version would enable users to track all of the geostationary satellites orbiting the earth." Ed Parsons was first to mention this news item.

in your bedroom you saw...

[BrentRJones]

...yo mama

Mod Parent -1 Newtonian

[avajcovec]

Other replies explain why.

Right direction for geek treasure hunters

[HellYeahAutomaton]

It will be interesting to see how deep the level will go on towns; and if there
will be lots of cross-referenced historical metadata in the long run.

I've spent a lot of time at USGS libraries to find out information on historical
context for my metal detecting hobby, and I can see at least a few practical
applications for this.

Grossly outdated satalite images

[InsaneProcessor]

The images on GoogleEarth are grossly out of date. 3 years is a lot of topographic change.

Nice but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be happier if they put a little more effort in including missing areas for nowaday's map instead of joking with this (not all of us live in the US).

Re:The fourth dimension has nothing to do with tim

[shish]

/me notes how slashdot cuts post titles short when you put a "Re:" in front, and giggles childishly

Temporal Binoculars!

[matthewcornell]

I think using tools like this to learn history, including geologic history, is wonderful. Regarding examining the land around us, I wrote a while back about something similar - Temporal Binoculars. The gist is a computer with visual overlay (i.e., augmented reality) in a binocular form factor. It would have the usual controls, plus a time dial. Students and other curious humans could carry them about, look around, and learn about where they are. Throw in some flora and fauna simulations, and you've got a great platform for discussions and education. More at Temporal Binoculars</shameless plug>