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Re: The Fourth Dimension

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On Thursday, September 17, 2015 at 3:31:09 PM UTC-5, The Starmaker wrote:
> Koobee Wublee wrote:
> > On Thursday, September 17, 2015 at 12:04:28 PM UTC-7, The Starmaker wrote:
> > > Who invented this thing called the fourth dimension and that time is in it?
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells
> > In
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine
> Are you saying that Albert Einstein got his relativity Time and Fourth Dimension idea from reading a ...science fiction book????

As everybody knows Einstein was extremely put off by the use of 4D chrono-geometry for relativity and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into accepting the notion. It was Minkowski (his math professor) who started using it -- in a paper published in 1908 -- not Einstein (who in fact co-published a series of papers with Laub on the very same topic as Minkowski's paper (the relativistic version of the equations for constitutive media in electromagnetic theory)).

As far as where the idea stems from -- like it or not -- that's Galileo (even despite himself). For the following reason:

Euclidean 3D geometry is founded on 3 degrees of translational symmetry and 3 degrees of reorientation symmetry. Likewise a single time dimension possesses it 1 degree of (translation) symmetry. But the instant you pose any symmetry law that involves both space and time you have a unified chrono-geometry and it was Galileo who first posed the 3 degrees of "boost" symmetry (hence the name "Galilean transformation") by virtue of saying that motion was relative. That forces the geometry to be 4 dimensional.

In fact, the reason Newton was so dead set against the idea of motion being relative is exactly that: it makes any formulation based on 3D geometry impossible since the geometry's most fundamental undefined (the "point") ceases to have any meaning if motion is relative. (i.e. what counts as the "same point" at two different times if you don't know when you're moving or not).

So for that reason Newton's law of inertia was stated in two parts: one for the stationary case and the other for the moving case, while never acknowledging anywhere in his treatment that the two cases were at all equivalent.

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The Fourth Dimension The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-09-17 12:04 -0700
  Re: The Fourth Dimension gilber34 <invalid@invalid.com> - 2015-09-17 14:07 -0500
  Re: The Fourth Dimension The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-09-17 13:31 -0700
    Re: The Fourth Dimension Rock Brentwood <federation2005@netzero.com> - 2015-09-18 13:07 -0700
      Re: The Fourth Dimension Rock Brentwood <federation2005@netzero.com> - 2015-09-18 13:13 -0700
  Re: The Fourth Dimension Sam Wormley <swormley1@gmail.com> - 2015-09-17 15:58 -0500
    Re: The Fourth Dimension The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-09-17 14:40 -0700
      dimension sAm noTthaTguY <abu.kuanysh05@gmail.com> - 2015-09-17 16:30 -0700
      Re: The Fourth Dimension benj <nobody@gmail.com> - 2015-09-18 01:05 -0400
        Re: The Fourth Dimension The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-09-17 22:42 -0700
        Re: The Fourth Dimension The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-09-17 23:01 -0700
          Re: The Fourth Dimension Poutnik <poutnik4nntp@gmail.com> - 2015-09-18 08:40 +0200
            Re: The Fourth Dimension The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-09-17 23:59 -0700
              Re: The Fourth Dimension Poutnik <Poutnik4NNTP@gmail.com> - 2015-09-18 10:28 +0200
                free, but not neccesarily cheap noTthaTguY <abu.kuanysh05@gmail.com> - 2015-09-18 11:15 -0700
              Re: The Fourth Dimension Sam Wormley <swormley1@gmail.com> - 2015-09-18 08:23 -0500
                Re: The Fourth Dimension Poutnik <Poutnik4NNTP@gmail.com> - 2015-09-18 15:41 +0200
                Re: The Fourth Dimension The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-09-18 10:56 -0700
      Re: The Fourth Dimension Sam Wormley <swormley1@gmail.com> - 2015-09-18 08:20 -0500
  Re: The Fourth Dimension Poutnik <poutnik4nntp@gmail.com> - 2015-09-18 08:20 +0200
    Re: The Fourth Dimension Poutnik <Poutnik4NNTP@gmail.com> - 2015-09-18 11:19 +0200

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