What Is the First Dimension and Why Is It Considered Nothing?

[Spacepantz86]

I do not understand the principle, to me it would make more sense if there was no line, there is nothing.

The best way I can think of it would be, the first dimension is the observer, or nothing.

I really don't know, its just this way makes more sense in my head, though I am lacking any knowledge of physics really.

Sorry about my ignorance, just wanting to learn :)

 

[PeroK]

A point has zero dimension, a line has one dimension, a surface has two dimensions etc.

 

[Spacepantz86]

Still does not make sense sorry, A point is just a very very short line, I do not understand how they can be separate?

 

[PeroK]

A point is just a very very short line

No it's not. A point is a point and a line is an infinite set of points. A point has zero length.

 

[Spacepantz86]

I get the explanation, and understand it, but it just won't work in my head.

To the observer, whether it is a line or shape won't matter, its in the 2nd dimension and can only be view in the second dimension. Just like a set of construction plans.

Yeah I don't get, how 2 2d things can have separate dimensions, when they are both two dimensional, belonging in the second dimension.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I get the explanation, and understand it, but it just won't work in my head.

I feel your pain. The thing about these ideas is that they are not intuitive. What Mathematicians call a point has no size. Take a very short line - then shorter and shorter but it still has some length. A point has no length so it's a different beast altogether.
This may be easier to understand in the world of Integers. Have 100 cans of beans and start removing them, one by one. There will be some cans there until the time you take the last can away and then there are NO cans in the box - same as there are no elephants, no people, no nails , no anything. The "Zero-ness' covers everything, whereas the 'one-ness' of a single can or a single grain of sand only refers to cans or grains. Zero is special. So Zero Dimensions is not the same as something very short.

 

[Mark44]

I get the explanation, and understand it, but it just won't work in my head.

Then you don't really understand the explanation.

To the observer, whether it is a line or shape won't matter, its in the 2nd dimension and can only be view in the second dimension. Just like a set of construction plans.

You might be thinking of a line (one-dimensional) drawn on a piece of paper (essentially two-dimensional if we ignore the fact that the paper has thickness along a third dimension).

If you put a pencil on the line and stay on the line, you can go in only two directions, forward or backward along the line. The motion of the pencil is one-dimensional. If you move the pencil off the line, now it is going off in a completely different direction.

Yeah I don't get, how 2 2d things can have separate dimensions, when they are both two dimensional, belonging in the second dimension.

The don't "belong" in "the" second dimension. Two-D objects are elements of two-dimensional space. I brick and a cardboard box are three-dimensional objects. They both have length, width, and depth. The three dimensions aren't really separate on the two objects.

 

[sophiecentaur]

It's worth pointing out that nothing we see or feel has less than three dimensions. The dimensions are a mathematical idea. Also, the 'dimensions' we use, don't need to be described with the xyz co ordinates we are familiar with. The dimensions can be described using other co ordinates e.g. polar co ordinates. ('Other co ordinates are available'). But you always need three numbers to describe the position of a point in 3D space.