Math Forum Discussions

Clifford J. Nelson

Posts: 215
Registered: 12/6/04

Is physical space at minimum 4D?
Posted: Nov 4, 2007 9:03 AM

Plain Text

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal_lock
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/gimbals.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gyroscope_operation.gif

>From Synergetics: "The specialists brief on brevity is dubious".

Is gimbal lock a hint that the definition of physical space as three
dimensional instead of four dimensional is just a case of too much
brevity by mathematicians?

The reason I ask is that you can define physical space as four
dimensional like the Synergetics coordinate system, which is from the
tetrahedron, described at:
http://bfi.org/node/574
and a method to overcome gimbal lock uses four dimensional unit
quaternions.

And the Pythagoreons might have had the right idea at:

http://kmr.nada.kth.se/files/gok/firstproto/index.php?gallery=Fenomen_och
_Begrepp/Pythagoras/Misc&image=Number_related_to_form.jpg

Cliff Nelson

Dry your tears, there's more fun for your ears,
"Forward Into The Past" 2 PM to 5 PM, Sundays,
California time,
http://www.geocities.com/forwardintothepast/
Don't be a square or a blockhead; see:
http://bfi.org/node/574
http://library.wolfram.com/infocenter/search/?search_results=1;search_per
son_id=607