On Ten Dimensions

When the discussion regarding the countermeasure against the Three Pillars of Ming had finally come to an end, Zhongming raised his hand and asked a question.

"Senior Xue Jian," he addressed, "You had mentioned earlier that you and Senior Hualing had attended this event solely to hunt a specific spirit beast. Is there anything that needs to be discussed regarding that?"

"Yes," Xue Jian replied. "Actually. I was just about to bring this topic up. Do you remember the array that I had cast during our training sessions? This array is a prototype that creates a countable infinity of mathematical dimensions, each layer storing a snapshot of reality in a specific point in time."

"Hualing had asked me for some assistance in further developing the array; she had wished to incorporate various possibilities into each snapshot of reality. This way, the caster didn't have only static snapshots to choose from but would rather have the ability to pick and choose different outcomes."

"After some researching, we had come across something interesting; there seemed to be records of a spirit beast that had abilities similar to Hualing's Dao of Dimensions. Yet if looking at its abilities purely from a mathematical perspective, some of it doesn't make much sense. Thus Hualing had ended up theorizing a different model for looking at dimensions. So our trip this time is mainly for study, observation, and confirmation. Actually, at this point, it might be better if Hualing took over the conversation since this is her area of expertise."

With a nod, Hualing cleared her throat and spoke.

"So I have been theorizing about a different model for understanding dimensions; my original understanding of dimensions was based on n degrees of freedom. For instance, on a line from one to five, you only need one number, such as 3, to indicate your position on the line. For a plane, you need two numbers, an x,y coordinate, to indicate your position on the plane. This can theoretically go on to infinity. In the new model that I've been developing, there would only be eleven dimensions."

Zhongming was actually a bit surprised to hear that Hualing came up with a model of dimensionality that was limited to eleven dimensions.

Back in his old life, he remembered that at some point in school, they had briefly covered the topic of string theory, which required eleven dimensions.

It was awe-inspiring that at this level of technological development, there was someone capable of coming to similar conclusions to the top physicists of his time.

"Since Master Mo asked us to bring you along. This should be a good chance for you to further increase your comprehension of reality." Hualing said as she walked over to Xue Jian and held out her hand, "Can you let me borrow your projection device?"

Xue Jian reached into his dimensional storage and pulled out a small device handing it over to Hualing.

Taking the device, she turned back and addressed the four younger cultivators.

"I trust that each of you. At least have a cursory understanding of the three dimensions?"

"The three dimensions would be length, width, and height." Replied Xuiying.

Hualing nodded at the answer. "That is a typical understanding, which is good enough for the typical layman. However, for what we are going to discuss today, we will need to think about it more thoroughly."

This time, Zhongming answered with some of what he had remembered from his schooling in his past life.

"If we consider zero dimension to be a singular point in space, then one dimension would be the connection between any two arbitrary zero-dimensional points. If we then take that one-dimensional line and extrude it, we now have a two-dimensional plane. Again if we take the two-dimensional plane and extrude it along an orthogonal plane, we now have a three-dimensional cube."

"Yes, this is a more thorough understanding of the dimensions that will be more conducive for our purposes today."

Holding out her hand Hualing activated the projection device, and a single point formed, which morphed into a line, then a plane, then a cube.

"Mathematically, we can extrude this cube along an orthogonal plane."

This time a larger cube was extruded from the original cube, diagonal lines connected their respective corners. This was a tesseract, a representation of a four-dimensional cube in three-dimensional space. Again a larger tesseract was extruded from the original tesseract; now, the shape was a penteract.

"What you see here is a three-dimensional representation of the four-dimensional shadow of a fifth-dimensional cube. This can be extended ad infinitum."

Hualing willed the projection back into a three-dimensional Cube.

"For this new model of dimensions, the zero to third dimensions remain the same. The divergence will be from the fourth dimension onwards. So, why don't you guys think about what could possibly be the fourth dimension?"

The young cultivators, sans Zhongming, stared intently at the projection, their brains no doubt working overtime to try and unlock the mysteries of the fourth dimension.

Due to Zhongming's old life, he had already learned a bit about general relativity. Thus he already knew that the fourth dimension was time.

Rather than blurt out the answer, it was better to allow his colleagues some time to ponder on the question.

In order to achieve a higher understanding of the Dao, simply knowing knowledge on a specific topic was not sufficient comprehension.

What was truly important was not knowing but rather understanding. For instance, if we take an average person of decent schooling and intelligence and taught them general relativity.

Superficially one may equate them as equivalent in terms of understanding reality, yet for one, it is merely superficial knowledge that gives them 'facts' about the nature of the universe. For Einstein who understood the in's and out's of the theory, he had to ability to refine and advance the theory bringing it ever closer to reality.