Understanding How a Tesseract Works for Travel: Theories, Formulas, and More

  • Context: Graduate 
  • Thread starter Thread starter marlo
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Tesseract Works
Click For Summary

Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the concept of tesseracts and their potential implications for travel, particularly in relation to theories, formulas, and literary references. Participants explore the geometric nature of tesseracts and their hypothetical connections to higher dimensions and travel through space-time.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant asks for explanations, articles, theories, or formulas related to how tesseracts work for travel.
  • Another participant describes tesseracts as geometric shapes and suggests that their fourth-dimensional aspect could allow for travel without moving through familiar space and time.
  • A participant references Madeline L'Engle's work, questioning whether tesseracts were intended to represent what we now consider wormholes.
  • Further discussion includes an analogy from L'Engle's book about wrinkling space-time to facilitate travel, comparing it to an ant walking across a wrinkled fabric.
  • One participant introduces the idea that "wrinkles" may relate to branes and their role in connecting dimensions through gravity.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express varying interpretations of tesseracts and their implications for travel, with no consensus reached on their practical applications or connections to existing theories like wormholes.

Contextual Notes

Some claims rely on speculative connections between geometry and travel, and the discussion includes references to literary interpretations that may not align with scientific consensus.

marlo
could anyone explain to me how a tesseract works as far as travel is concerned? are there any articles, theories, or better yet, any formulas associated with this concept? i'd love to hear them.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Physics news on Phys.org
Welcome to the Forums Marlo!

Tesseracts are simply geometric shapes, and their importance to travel is not a direct relationship. They are often reffered to as a "4-D Cube"; just as a square has two lines that come together at each corner, each at 90o to the other, and a cube has three lines in that same relationship, a tesseract has a fourth line at its corner which is at right-angle to the other three.

The important thing to travel would be that, since we can logically deduce the existence of such a shape (even though we can't see it or even "picture" it), it is rational to state that that "fuorth line" does exist, and the direction in which it points is one not visible, nor even "envisionable" to us 3-D critters. If we could find a way to point ourselves in that direction, we could take a trip without moving through the space (and therefore the time) with which we are familliar. This would certainly put a new "Wrinkle" on travel!

(BTW; Say 'hi' to Aunt Beast for me, wouldya?)
 
You must be a Madeline L'Engle fan... and I must be a mean jerk who says jerky things.

eNtRopY
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Any links about this? Seems interesting.
 
Did Madeline L'Engle intend tesseracts for what we call "wormholes" today?
 
Originally posted by Loren Booda
Did Madeline L'Engle intend tesseracts for what we call "wormholes" today?

I honestly haven't read A Wrinkle in Time since the fourth grade... and that was like 17 years ago... Jeez I'm old.

Anyway, I don't remember exactly how time travel was possible in that book, but I do remember it involved wrinkling the space-time continuum so that a time traveller wouldn't have to take the long route. I remember the analogy given was wrinkling a piece of fabric so that an ant could walk from end-to-end without having to traverse the middle.

eNtRopY
 
"Wrinkles" sound like branes; the parallel dimensionality of the latter short-circuits E-M space through gravity.
 

Similar threads

Undergrad Relationship between Concentration of a Force and Energy Density
  • · Replies 11 ·
Replies
11
Views
2K
Undergrad Same old question, I still don't get it: E=1/2mv^2 - more E with V?
  • · Replies 41 ·
2
Replies
41
Views
5K
Graduate Please Explain Elementary Physics Elevator Question
  • · Replies 22 ·
Replies
22
Views
2K
High School New idea about wave-particle duality - looking for feedback/criticism
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
2K
Graduate Exactly how do pressure waves work at the molecular level?
  • · Replies 49 ·
2
Replies
49
Views
5K
Undergrad Understanding Bolted Joints: Shigley's Explanation & Real-Life Testing
  • · Replies 8 ·
Replies
8
Views
5K
Undergrad Gyroscopic precession of a spin-stabilized bullet
  • · Replies 10 ·
Replies
10
Views
5K
Plot a stereographic hypercube in a Mac's Grapher.app?
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
2K
Undergrad Do Electrons Travel from the Positive to the Negative Terminal in a Battery?
  • · Replies 11 ·
Replies
11
Views
4K
Undergrad Drag equation - relative flow velocity
  • · Replies 11 ·
Replies
11
Views
4K