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Six-Dimensional Space-Time Theory

eldavojohn writes "PhysOrg is covering an interesting year-old paper that proposes an alternative six-dimensional theory of space and time. George Sparling's proposition, based on Einstein's general relativity and Elie Cartan's triality, is a twistor space (which I've only read of in Roger Penrose's latest work). The gist is that space-time is modeled not by four dimensions but by six, and that the extra two dimensions are time-like. Sparling is hoping that tests from the Large Hadron Collider will help prove his theory. The paper is heavy but the PhysOrg article summarizes it nicely."

19 of 330 comments (clear)

  1. No humsn has a right to think wrong! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Time is four-dimensional, so there are 7 dimensions! So sayeth the TimeCube!

    1. Re:No humsn has a right to think wrong! by Dun+Malg · · Score: 3, Funny

      Time is four-dimensional, so there are 7 dimensions! So sayeth the TimeCube! Come on, you idiot mods! If ever there was an appropriate time to bring up timecube.com, this is it. Is it that it's the first post? Use your brain and actually critically examine the content of a post before modding, please. This isn't a GNAA troll, he didn't once say "frist post", "fust poost", or "frost piss" anywhere in the message body, and the TimeCube guy is a fairly old and well known example of what happens when you let a billion people put whatever they like on the internet.
      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
  2. According to the paper... by Shihar · · Score: 4, Funny
    I was reading the paper on this theory. I found this part VERY interesting. It is like my whole life has meaning now.

    Cubicism, Not group theory.
    If ignorant of the almighty
    Time Cube Creation Truth,
    you deserve to be killed.
    Killing you is not immoral -
    but justified to save life on
    Earth for future generations.
    Academic taught singularity
    within universe of opposites,
    has lobotomized your mind.
    You are Enslaved by Word -
    no whip or shackle required.
    You do not have the freedom
    to discuss/debate Time Cube.
    Academia destroys your mind
    by suppressing opposite view.
    God equals self masturbation
    of mind - for opposites create.
    You are educated singularities.
    YOU DESERVE DEATH -
    FOR SINGULARITY EVIL
    in the Universe of Opposites.
    No God Can Make Himself
    as singularity is death, not life.
    Planets nor human are entities
    as they equal Zero Opposites.
    You are educated singularity
    stupid and evil, unfit for life
    in the Universe of Opposites.
  3. Heavy paper. by chris_eineke · · Score: 4, Funny

    My god, it's full of time!

    --
    "All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
  4. I'm ridin' spinors by tepples · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sparling wrote:

    In physics, the idea of a spinor stems from the finding that spectral lines of atoms seem to behave as if the angular momentum of the particles radiating photons was in half-integral units of the quantized spin (whose size is determined by Planck's constant). This was fully explained by Dirac's famous theory of the electron, which led him to successfully predict the existence of the positron.

    Or as Three 6 Mafia put it: "I'm ridin' spinors, I'm ridin' spinors, they don't stop..."

  5. Three time dimensions by Harmonious+Botch · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now there are three ways we can have dupes.

    1. Re:Three time dimensions by crazyvas · · Score: 5, Funny

      Now there are three ways we can have threeways.

  6. 640k dimesions are enough! by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 4, Funny

    I just want to set an upper limit before everyone goes crazy.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
    1. Re:640k dimesions are enough! by Walt+Dismal · · Score: 4, Funny

      By god, when I were a lad we only had three dimensions, and we LIKED it! You modern kids with yer artsy fartsy ponsy 6 dimensions! All we need was three, and we managed to build steam locomotives and conquer the West! You ain't never satisfied, is you? And strings -- my great-aunt's ass. If particles were good enough for Einstein, they should be good enough fer the likes of you! Hey now, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and all he had were wormy biscuits. Bah. Ya poofters.

  7. Well, that's just fantastic by Manchot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Great, not only do we have to figure out how to travel through time, but now we also have to figure out how to travel through uime and vime!

  8. Missing something. . . by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 4, Funny
    I think this passage loses its full meaning when not presented in the original 48pt orange text on fluorescent green animated gif background.

    There's, "Controversial and Open to Alternative Explanations", and then there's, "Insanity".

    Spelling and language skills tend to decay the further toward the "Insanity" end of the spectrum one travels. Interestingly, I've read Right Wing screeds which don't fare much better in the language department. Learn to discern.


    -FL

  9. I thought Gravity was the 4th dimension by Degrees · · Score: 4, Funny
    As the field expands, we interpret it as time - but the actual drag on the field is seen as gravity. This makes the four directions left-right, up-down, forward-backward, (and in a twisty spiral that looks like a logarithmic curve, but is really just yet-another-right-angle in the fourth dimension) inward-outward (collapsing-expanding).

    OK - I'm just messing with you. I have no idea - but I looked through a textbook at a UC Berkeley bookstore years ago with that title, with the picture of the logarithmic spiral, and liked the idea.

    ;-)

    --
    "The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
  10. SIX dimensions?!? by DragonHawk · · Score: 4, Funny

    What's that?? *SIX* whole dimensions? Why, when I was starting out, we only had three dimensions, and we liked it that way. Length, width, and height were good enough for us, and they should be good enough for anyone. Why, we sometimes had to work in just *two* dimensions -- *and they were both length*! You didn't hear *us* complaining about relativity or quantum effects. If it can't be expressed in a Newtonian physics, it shouldn't be expressed at all, that's what we said. Pretty soon you'll be inventing time travel and creating causality paradoxes and tearing apart the entire space-time continuum, and *then* where will we be, I ask ya? You young scientists these days, why, you have no idea what proper respect is.

    And get off my lawn!

    --

    dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
    I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
  11. Who modded that insightful? by Manchot · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought that my judicious use of the non-existent words "uime" and "vime" would be the first clue that I wasn't very serious.

  12. Submitted for your approval by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 5, Funny

    As usual, Rod predicted this:

    "There is a sixth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area that might be called the Twilight Zone."

    --
    Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
  13. QFA by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Consider this analogy: if you take a plate and hold it in one hand horizontally whilst twisting it under your arm backwards through 360 degrees, your arm ends up in the air after one rotation, and it needs another 360 degree rotation to get it back to the beginning," he said.
    I think I saw that happen to a dude on UFC then he tapped out with his remaining arm.

  14. Project deadlines may now be met! by Alain+Williams · · Score: 3, Funny

    Now if only I can learn how to use those 2 extra time dimensions, I might get the extra month that I need to complete the project before it is due tomorrow.

    Great news for project planners everywhere!

    How do we redraw gantt charts to represent these extra dimensions ?

  15. Re:Why 3 dimensions of space? by ross.w · · Score: 4, Funny
    Actually, there are 4:

    For this cause, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 3:15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 3:16 that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; 3:17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 3:18 may be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 3:19 and to know Christ's love which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

    Ephesians 3:14-19
    --
    If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
  16. Re:Einstein was a fraud by Goaway · · Score: 5, Funny

    Actually Tesla created the equivalent of a waterwheel that tapped the energy of Earth's motion through the coelestial aether. However, the resulting drag force was larger than he'd predicted, and after his experiments introduced a full extra day in 1892 (February 31, 1892 - google it), he was forced to stop his experiments. The original wheel is still on display in his home town of Smiljan. On special occasions, it is started up and let spin freely, without an load attached.

    Also, Tesla had to use the energy he'd stored up from the wheel (in a huge bank of capacitors - creating this was such a feat that the unit for capacitance is now named in his honour) to actually drive the wheel and restore the Earth's proper rotational period. Of course, the transfer wasn't without loss, which is why years divisible by 100 do not have leap days any longer.