Imagining The 10th Dimension

So we all know that there are 4 dimensions (3 spacial [height, width and depth] + time) we perceive in our universe. Something that has always interested me is the probability that there are even more dimensions than this that we cannot perceive.

Take for example a drawing on a piece of paper. That has height and width but does not have any depth. We all know that there is depth in our universe, it's just that a drawing cannot perceive this. Take again that drawing and turn it into a flip book. This drawing now has another dimension, time. The possibility of a high dimensional being, being able to see and travel across multiple dimensions, including our own, is amazing.

Have a look at a simple way of imagining extra dimensions.

Take a point. This is a zero dimensional entity, having no width, no height, no depth, no change over time. Nothing.

Lets take another point and draw a line between this one and the other. Now we have a 1 dimensional shape. A line. A connection between any two points. We all understand this. We must also note in reality the dimension extends beyond these two points into infinity.

Now let's take another line that crosses the first line. This makes a 2 dimensional shape, one with length and height. For purposes used later on, this will be known as the split.  For illustration later on I have removed the other half of the new line.

Rather then taking the usual approach to see the third dimension as other point that is not located on the plane constructed above, we are going to do something different. This way will help us to understand higher dimensions. Take the example above as a 2 dimensional piece of paper. If we fold this piece of paper so that it touches itself in other place, we are now able to use this third dimension to travel instantaneously for one location on the paper to another. In the image below we can see how, by travelling through the third dimension, you are able to move instantly from the red dot, to the blue dot. For illustration purposes this will be know as the fold.

Now we have 3 dimensions we can model in real life. Let's have a look at a fourth. Time. Before we can do this we must take everything we have already looked at and correlate it to a single point. This point represents a position in a 3 dimensional universe. A single point in time, the 4th dimension.

As before lets take another point in this new dimension, say a short time in the future, and draw a line between these two points. This line represents every different position in the 3 dimensional space above over a period of time. If we were to be able to observe every possible point in the time line, this would be the 5th dimension. To help illustrate this, image again a flip book. When you flip the pages you can see the image travelling through the fourth dimension, time. However if you were to put each page in front of you at the same time and view across all points of time, this is viewing in the 5th dimension.

Let's take another point of time that is not on this line, a point that correlates to a point in our universe which we did not reach. To better explain this we can image standing at an intersection. If we take the path on the right, our 4th dimensional line would be the occurrence of us taking the path on the right. However since we are unable to go back in time and change this decision we will never reach the other point, the one reach by taking the path on the left. This is the split in the time dimension, the 6th dimension. Seeing every possible outcome from an initial condition. In our universe the initial condition is the big bang.

What if we were now able to travel instantaneously between one of these time lines to another? Say we did take the path on the right as above. If we were to use a further 7th dimension to change from the current time line to the one where we instead chose to take the path on the left. This fold in the time dimension is known as the 6th dimension. We see many examples in movies where one travels back in time, changes an event in the past and returns to the current time, but everything is different. That is using the 6th dimension. The 7th dimension would be directly travelling to the changed universe without the need for travelling backwards and forwards through time.

As before we want to go further. So let's take every possible 3 dimensional occurrence in every possible time line and condense that into a single point. This point represents our universe and all possible outcomes from the initial conditions of this universe, a concept we often refer to as infinity. This is a point in the 7th dimension.

 But this isn't the whole picture. If we were to imagine another universe. One with a different set of initial conditions, and most likely with different physical properties, and draw a line between our universe and this other universe, we have our 8th dimension.

Now let's take another universe, not on this line, and again, draw the split to this new universe. Being able to see over all these universes and all these time lines is using the 9th dimension.

By using the previous fold concept and being able to jump across any of these universes and time lines in the 9th dimension, we must use the 10th dimension. Taking all of these possibilities and condensing them we arrive with a point in the 10th dimension. 

But this is where we get stuck. To follow this visualisation process we must now find another point in the 10th dimension with which to draw a line, but there is nothing else. We hit a road block.

So there you have it. An imagination of the 10th dimension.

I hope those of you that got this far did not get lost...
Those that did, I'm sorry.

This guy explains it much better.

Cheers,
Milk