- #1
Dr.Boo
- 2
- 0
Hello everybody. Let me first quickly introduce myself: I'm an amateur who is interested in various scientific topics. Going from how jellyfish defend themselves and how viruses helped evolution to nuclear fusion and volcanoes. Please note the word amateur... I'm in no way a professional. Actually, I'm a game designer and I'm simply interested in science as a hobby. So if I say anything here that is not correct, please by all means, correct me.
Anyways, I have a question that's been bugging me for a while. I understand the concept of Einsteins special relativity theory: time how you see it is relative to how fast you're moving. An atomic clock for example ticks much slower when traveling at light speed.
I also understand the concept of the marble on a sheet theory: huge masses, like our sun or mother Earth, distort spacetime like a bowlingball would distort a trampoline.
I can also understand more or less how wormholes work. The picture you can see on wikipedia is quite self-explanatory to be honest
http://www.daviddarling.info/images/wormhole_graphic.jpg
Where the green grid represents spacetime.
But something I don't really understand, and please excuse my ignorance, but spacetime has 4 dimensions right? X, Y and Z plus Time. X, Y and Z are coordinates in a 3 dimensional space (which is easy to understand especially when you're used to work with 3D design programs where they use X, Y and Z coordinates). I'm still correct right?
But that picture of wormholes I posted a bit higher shows space time as being a flat area... 2D... what's the deal with that?
I know a lot of you will probably put their face in their palm now thinking "oh god... *sigh*" but if anyone could explain to me how to interpret that problem, I'd be very grateful. I've come to a point where my curiosity is too strong to just ignore.
Thanks a lot
Anyways, I have a question that's been bugging me for a while. I understand the concept of Einsteins special relativity theory: time how you see it is relative to how fast you're moving. An atomic clock for example ticks much slower when traveling at light speed.
I also understand the concept of the marble on a sheet theory: huge masses, like our sun or mother Earth, distort spacetime like a bowlingball would distort a trampoline.
I can also understand more or less how wormholes work. The picture you can see on wikipedia is quite self-explanatory to be honest
http://www.daviddarling.info/images/wormhole_graphic.jpg
Where the green grid represents spacetime.
But something I don't really understand, and please excuse my ignorance, but spacetime has 4 dimensions right? X, Y and Z plus Time. X, Y and Z are coordinates in a 3 dimensional space (which is easy to understand especially when you're used to work with 3D design programs where they use X, Y and Z coordinates). I'm still correct right?
But that picture of wormholes I posted a bit higher shows space time as being a flat area... 2D... what's the deal with that?
I know a lot of you will probably put their face in their palm now thinking "oh god... *sigh*" but if anyone could explain to me how to interpret that problem, I'd be very grateful. I've come to a point where my curiosity is too strong to just ignore.
Thanks a lot