Imagining the Second Dimension

Wow! Over 20,000 subscribers! Thanks everyone! Thank you to Zoltan Penzeli for the new Hungarian subtitles. To read along (in English) go to http://imaginingthetenthdimension.blogspot.com/2011/08/imagining-second-dimen...
Other links from this entry:
http://imaginingthetenthdimension.blogspot.com/2008/07/what-would-flatlander-...
http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~banchoff/Flatland/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-line-plane_postulate

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• physics
• philosophy
• Edwin
• Abbott
• Flatland
• dimensions
• flatlander
• point
• line
• plane
• postulate
• Bryanton
• tenth
• tenthdimension

[SuperDubyman]

Where the hell is the 1st video (Imagining the 1st Dimension i assume...) of this series????????



[10thdim]

@SuperDubyman Haha, that would be a pretty short video! "The first dimension is a line with no width or depth, passing through any two points". End of video, roll credits. :) Or you could just watch this video from 1:05 to 1:15.

[Vlademir222]

If Flatlanders could exist would they ever really see anything? You said in the video that the 2nd Dimension has no depth at all, so in other words the Flatlander could not see anything, ever, that includes not seeing lines. You contradicted yourself in your video.

[10thdim]

@Vlademir222 Watch Imagining the Third Dimension and you'll see I use the same logic to argue that you and I can't see the third dimension. There's no contradiction in that statement.

[sentenal01]

So, if I'm understanding this correctly, if the second dimension can exists if we substitute a right angle, and that reality as it exists in its entirety is so mind bending and unbelievably strange and incomprehensible as of now, can (and please forgive my ignorance on the subject) cartoon world theoretically exist? Now the same exact worlds that people draw and post on TV, but can a universe existing on the second dimension be cartoonish, or is this just misplaced thinking?

[10thdim]

@sentenal01 Interesting question! As I say in this video, I'm not sure a 2D creature could actually exist, since a second dimensional awareness would be very limited in what it could perceive. Cartoon characters, even though they're flat, appear to be able to see around themselves the same way you and I do, so they're not really flatlanders. Watch this: 73IGTygl_Q4

But even if living flatlanders couldn't really exist doesn't mean the second dimension doesn't exist.

Thanks for writing!

Rob

[burchified]

Parallel lines are ideas as well.

[o0LunaticAsylum0o]

but dragons exist...

[belkinmg]

I DON'T OWN A BOAT AND I DONT LIKE THE WATER.

[xmenxwk]

lol I think people on 2d world also watching their youtube and imagining 3rd dimension

[MrWazzup987]

@SuperDubyman the first dimension is a line no really mystery there

[jasonleeholm]

A.K. Dewdney wrote "The Planiverse" about a 2d world that actually had a "down". He went into some great discussions on not just how living things with a society could live in such a world without being bisected (their digestive systems and veins work like a zipper), but in the appendix he goes into the very physics of such a world -- elements, 2d molecules and biology, etc.

[Turboviiper]

3:07 wouldn't it need depth to see lines like that?

[SuperDubyman]

@10thdim Yeah my bad hahaha... didn't have any idea what the videos were about before I started watching. Now I watched them. I posted a few other more intelligent questions on the other videos haha, reply on those too

[TheWillwillwill]

Dragons don't exist?

[aradioactivedonut]

You managed to pervert physics! congratulations.