What Would a Flatlander Really See?

To read along go to http://imaginingthetenthdimension.blogspot.com/2008/07/what-would-flatlander-...
July 3, 2008 - A video blog by Rob Bryanton that discusses ideas around a flatlander and how the world would appear to such a being.

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• flat
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[MrRgambord]

Does the flatlander necessarily exist on one 2-d plane, or can the 2-d object exist on multiple 2-d planes oriented in 3-d space? Another way to describe this would be: any point that makes up the flatlander could have any z (height) value, while maintaining x an y values, but when viewed from above, it appears the same.

[10thdim]

@MrRgambord Yes, exactly! Just as 3D is space without time, and we have multiple planck frames of space stacked one next to another to create 4D space-time, it would be the same for the flatlander's world. 2D is a plane without time, no way for the flatlander to change from state to state. Which is why I say that the flatlander would perceive "time" to be a direction in the third spatial dimension, and "time" can be in any dimension depending upon your frame of reference.

Rob

[MrRgambord]

@10thdim Wow! So, for us, even though each planck frame is actually "stacked" up on top of another, we can only really imagine them as overlapping 3-D spaces because we can only view it from "above"? I've never heard of a planck frame before; are these discrete units, rather than a continuum? Also, we know that all systems tend towards increasing entropy in the universe, as a function of time. So, what implications does that have for time travel? How does energy even exist in the 4th dimension?

[10thdim]

@MrRgambord Please try watching Imagining the Fourth Dimension for more about how physicists like Julian Barbour support this idea of our reality being created in planck frames, one after another. watch?v=-D4swzK4sKk

Thanks for writing!

Rob

[drumsandguns2908]

If the 4th dimension is time/duration, how would a flat-lander percieve time? If it would percieve it at all.

[10thdim]

@drumsandguns2908 This is an important point - time is a direction, not a dimension, and it can be a direction in any dimension based upon your frame of reference. We're made out of 3D atoms and molecules, so we perceive our duration to be in the fourth dimension. With whatever the heck our imaginary 2D flatlander would be made out of, he would perceive the direction of "time" to be in the third dimension, and so on.

Thanks for writing!

Rob

[theblobinc1]

bet they are the size of an ant :)

[rossschcheese]

our 3d eyes only see 2d images. thats what i got out of the video! thanks rob, i live these.

[stanlozinsky]

objects, but as 2 completely different objects altogether.