It occurs to me that perhaps, just like the many generations of scientists and thinkers before us, we have grown drunk and arrogant on our own knowledge, refusing the sage Socratic advice that states the only true knowledge is knowing how little you know. Scientists and historians of today routinely disparage the lack of knowledge of their historic counterparts, just as those counterparts mocked the efforts of their own ancestors. In their day, the likes of Newton and Halley were just as sure of themselves as modern scientists are of their own laws and theories; however, Newton and Halley were proven wrong on several occasions. Who's to say that a new generation of scientists and theoriticians won't prove, for example, even Einstein wrong? We have convinced ourselves that we've found incorruptible scientific evidence of so much, yet Newton and Halley were likewise convinced of the existence of an ether for the transmission of energy, and that alchemy was a possible path to future success. Who is to say that future generations won't make the fool of our best and brightest? How do we know, without doubt, that we do in fact know what we know? How do we know that what we know is truly true?
Einstein's theory of relativity has always proven a source of both fascination and vexation for me. I freely admit that there is a 99% likelihood that the source of my irritation lies in simple ignorance; I have not studied the matter in detail, and surely even if I did, the advanced mathematics could easily elude me. Still, sometimes the specifics of the theory, when dumbed down to a level of popular understanding, seem to me to be overly convenient and simplistic. If Einstein was right, if this truly is the way the universe exists, then the convenience and probability of it all certainly proves the existence of a higher power guiding it all. The statistics are simply amazing in so many areas.
Of particular interest to me is speculation on the fabric of spacetime, proven though it may be. Spacetime, of course, is often used interchangeably with the concept of a fourth spatial dimension, although one that encompasses time, since time is just, after all, a different kind of facet of space, according to Einstein. In many ways this theory makes a great deal of sense and explains a similarly large amount of the formerly unexplainable. However, there are a few things about it that always seemed awfully coincidental to me.
For instance, we are often presented the example of the fabric of spacetime (or this fourth spatial dimension) as a stretched blanket or sheet on which a large sphere comfortably rests. Due to its weight, the large sphere pushes the SpaceTime Blanket downward. Now, if you add another smaller object to the sphere, it will fall toward the large sphere (since the large sphere is pushing the SpaceTime Blanket downward, forming an indentation - a dent). This is supposed to mirror and explain the truth of gravity. The Earth, for instance, is the large sphere that warps the fabric of spacetime. The warp in spacetime affects all of us smaller objects (like trees, buildings, cars, David Letterman, etc.), and causes us to "fall" toward the larger object - the Earth. Thus, gravity is explained, and the same concept that explains our attractiveness to our planet also includes our planet's tendency to stay in orbit around our sun, and our sun's tendency to orbit throughout our galaxy, and so on.
But here's the problem I keep coming back to: if we're talking about objects impacting the fourth dimension, and the fourth dimension being the source of what we perceive as gravity, then we are saying, in effect, that gravity as we imagine it does not exist. There is no such thing as a "gravitic force" or a power that is, in itself, gravity. Instead, gravity is just our perception of the warping of spacetime. Gravity isn't the disease - it's the symptom. Gravity isn't the force - it's just a side-effect of another force. Truly, there is no such thing as gravity - gravity is just an inadequate word we use to describe something we've never truly understood, just as a medieval peasant might call a flashlight magic. It's not magic - it's a higher level of science. Gravity doesn't exist - what we experience is simply all that we can limitedly perceive of something much higher, a mere perception.
But if gravity does not truly exist (or even if it does, if it is caused by the fourth dimension in our first, second, and third dimensions), then that necessarily would logically lead to the fact that there can be no gravity in this fourth dimension. The fourth dimension contains the cause of what we perceive as gravity - thus, unless, the phenomenon was repeated on yet another higher dimension, there could be no gravity at all on this fourth dimension. And if you say that yes, there is gravity on the fourth dimension because of a repeating of phenomena on the fifth, then you must ask the question of whether there exists gravity on that fifth dimension. This would require the existence of a sixth dimension with similar mechanics, which would require the existence of a seventh, and then an eighth, and then onwards to infinity. It's impossible to imagine - could it be possible to exist?
Back to the point - let's assume, then, the simpler approach. That there can be no gravity in this fourth dimension of spacetime, as the cause of the phenomenon is there, forcing gravity's influence into the lower dimensions (after all, there is no reason nor logic to suggest that the effect of gravity within the fourth dimension has an effect on itself... is there?). Now, at last, to the heart of the matter - if there is no gravity in this fourth dimension of spacetime, how then can the SpaceTime Blanket with large sphere example possibly apply?
Let's go back to the blanket/sphere experiment, the one that's meant to represent the earth's warping of the fourth dimension. Let's say you do the exact same experiment with a stretched out blanket and a large sphere... but this time you do it in space, far from any other objects, without the effects of gravity. What will happen? Not only will the large sphere not stretch and distort the blanket, the large sphere has no reason to ever touch the blanket! Without the prior existence of gravity, the analogy fails altogether. There is no warping of the blanket, thus there could be no warping of the fourth dimension, thus there could be no gravity.
The obvious rebuttal to this would seem to me to be that the blanket analogy takes three dimensions into account, whereas spacetime, or the fourth dimension, is by definition a single dimension. With the blanket analogy the sphere can move left, right, forward, backward, up, and down, if sufficiently motivated. In a single fourth dimension, there exists no left or right or up or down (for instance) - the dimension is a line. The only movement possible would be forward or backward, or left or right - there are only two directions to go.
So if an object, matter, a large sphere, a planet, moves within spacetime, which way does it move? If it falls parallel to spacetime, along spacetime, that would imply a movement in time itself, or an object eternally falling into the past or future propelled by its own mass. If it falls perpindicular to the line of spacetime... well, what direction is that? Is that some higher fifth dimension? It certainly isn't one of the three dimensions we're familiar with, is it?
And while we're on the subject, what, exactly, makes up this "fabric" of spacetime, the guts of the fourth dimension? If there is some substance that makes it up, some fabric, why is there no such fabric in the first, second, or third dimensions? The natural state of the three commonly perceived dimensions seems to be that of a vacuum - there is no "fabric" per se. So why does this fourth dimension have some kind of a "fabric", and what precisely is this fabric anyway? Is it matter? Is it energy? What makes it act the way it does? Do we perceive it in any form from our dimensionally challenged viewpoint?
Another question: why does an existence of an object, in and of itself, warp this spacetime fabric? If Einstein's theory is true (and, of course, I have no cleverer alternative), then any single scrap of matter warps the fourth dimension. The earth does, the sun does, I do, you do, an ant does, and a scrap of dust does (although minutely). Why is our very existence so very antithetical to the fabric of spacetime? There is no evidence of matter warping the first, second, or third dimensions, is there? Why does matter warp the fourth dimension while it warps none of the others?
I can only imagine two answers to this question. On the one hand, some other form of gravity exists in the fourth dimension and those higher, thus causing the indentation of dimensional fabric and the movement of matter. However, the very concept of an infinite number of dimensions boggles the mind. The only other solution that immediately presents itself is that the fourth dimension is unique among dimensions, with properties that could never be imagined in lower dimensions. What could explain the fourth dimension's uniqueness? The obvious solution is the fact that while the dimensions we are familiar with deal in space, the fourth dimension, conversely, deals with time.
In that case, matter causes a distortion in time, right? But have we ever witnessed this? Do we have any evidence of this? Surely, we have managed to detect time distortions when matter is in motion at very high speeds, but I am unaware of any experiments which have shown temporal distortions caused by the mere existence of matter. But according to Einstein's theory, shouldn't we see something of that sort wherever matter exists? And why is matter so disruptive to time, when energy doesn't seem to disrupt it at all? Do we really understand this?
Einstein's fourth dimensional theory explains so much... and it is undeniably brilliant. Still, from my own limited understanding and inadequate vantage point, it seems to leave an equal number of unanswered questions, chief among them this problem of gravity. Some experimental data seems to me to be contradictory. For instance, it's said that as an object approaches the speed of light, its fourth-dimensional compression actually causes it to shrink as part of it moves into time itself. The analogy always used is the train that shrinks (from an outsider's viewpoint) as it approaches the speed of light. A train that was once 100 yards long becomes 90, then 80 yards long.
Now, in this example, I would assume that the mass of the train is shrinking as it approaches the speed of light and part of it moves into the timestream itself. That's what the theory is, right? As you go faster, part of matter moves into the fourth dimension, where our earthly instruments can no longer detect it. Thus, we would see a reduction in mass.
But there are two problems with this.
First, if part of the train is "moving into the timestream itself", being shunted into the fourth dimension, and if the fourth dimension is time, wouldn't that part of the train that moved into the timestream necessarily reappear in our normal time-space at a different time? If part of the train moved into the fourth dimension (which is time), then wouldn't that part that disappeared now, reappear in the future or the past? Obviously this matter that disappears still exists, as it will return when movement slows - so when does it go?
Second, experimental evidence seems to show the exact opposite occuring. I recently read that a baseball, if thrown at a hundred miles per hour, will GAIN, not LOSE, a very very very small amount of mass. This baseball is approaching the speed of light, indubitably (although it still has a very long way to go), so shouldn't it be LOSING mass, not GAINING mass? According to the experiment, the baseball returns to normal mass when it ceases movement, but while it is moving at a rapid speed, it is larger. If part of it has been shunted into another dimension, wouldn't it be smaller?
And why is speed so important in the first place? Why would movement along dimensions one, two, or three have any effect on movement in four? If we moved an object westward (in dimension one) at high speeds, would that have any effect at all on its movement northward, or southward, or ascending or descending? Assuming a vacuum, there would be no effect, if Newton's laws are to be believed. So, again, why is the fourth dimension so different? And why is speed the trigger? What cosmic equation does simple acceleration satisfy?
Hey, my plane's boarding. Time for a nap.
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