Topic: Mario 128, Kid Icarus and more

[Ocarina Blue]

Well, time is a dimension we have a sort of special relationship with. Although a 4th dimension mentioned in a game could be time, it doesn't have to be. I think KDR once posted something about a game which forces players to move through a 4th dimension. It was on Underdogs I think.

BTW: You're avatar is just a little too big. 64x64 is the limit here

[KDR_11k]

It's called Frequon Invaders. Search on Google or The Underdogs.

[dapyroman.dk]

i never heard of a new kid icarus...

[mojorizin]

I doubt we see one of them.

[mouse_clicker]

Quote
Take Mario into 4-dimensional gaming! And I'm not talking about something lame like time control... it's up to Nintendo to revolutionize the industry again with the next Mario. They should find a way to squeeze 4 proper dimensions in there.

You're asking Nintendo to completely revolutionize not only gaming, but physics as well? You guys do have some high expectations.

[PaLaDiN]

I'm not sure if you caught my sarcasm, but yeah, I'll just say I was being sarcastic just in case.

Or was I?

[mouse_clicker]

I was being sarcastic, too.

[ThePerm]

the 4th dimention is time......ninty has done time travel.

[KDR_11k]

The fourth dimension ISN'T time, why the hell do you think it is? (besides, time travel would be boring, why would you want to travel to a time the earth and everything else have left years ago?)

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Oh, it's QUITE arguable that time is the 4th dimension.  Especially given that time is often used as an axis on a coordinate system in the physical sciences.

Just as bundles of matter can have a physical position in space (3D), they can also have a position/status/condition/property in physical time.  Grouping time & space together, you can get something that can be interpretted as a movie -- the contents of the frames may differ at different points in time.

[Ocarina Blue]

Yes, but that's only what we can intuitively percieve. I don't even have the most basic of qualifications in physics, but I'm pretty sure Time has to 'have' a number of right-angle-thingies > 1 more than our intuitive dimensions (which we would say would have 3) in order for us to have such a relationship with it. e.g. time = 5-11 right angle-thingies. Sorry about my terminology, but I'm sure you get what I mean

For all practicle purposes such as when creating a movie etc, time co-ordinates would have to be recognised, as well as the 3 others of space. So while time would be the 4th dimensional-coordinate, it wouldn't be the 4th dimension. Or something.

Wouldn't the most logical form of time travel that we could complete in the near-future be just to move really fast arond space/time then measure the time lapse using two atomic clocks?

[WesDawg]

The "right angle" word is orthogonal, although I have no idea what you're trying to say. They done experiments where they take jet planes fitted with atomic clocks high into the upper atmosphere and fly them in opposite directions around the earth, then measure the time difference between the clocks. They both read different, so in some sense I guess one pilot traveled farther forward in time than the other. Yay.

More interestingly alot of things in physics get described by their coordinates in momentum space instead of realspace. There might be some sort of intersting game in that, but probably not. I think I'd rather just have a water pack.

[KDR_11k]

I'd say they just slow down, they don't move faster than everything else or anything (else they'd eventually overtake the rest...)

The problem with a movie is that if you look on the film roll, every object exists once per frame, however, unless we're vastly violating mass-conservation we can only have one object, which can only be in one place in the timeline (ergo, if you went back through time, there wouldn't be an Earth). Unless we assume that the mass of an object increases over time (which would be interesting, considering gravity supposedly extends into all dimensions) we'd have to assume a completely static universe (i.e. no time). Actually, the previous sentence makes no sense, since if time is dimensional, it doesn't pass and objects wouldn't increase in mass since they wouldn't do anything. That is possible, but pretty pointless to argue about, since time travel and the like wouldn't be possible, either (since neither you nor the rest of the universe does anything since time "stands still").

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

The water pack is fun, but definitely not a replacement for certain other more entertaining gameplay elements found in a certain predecessor...

The film roll is simply a graph, displaying instantaneous stages of existence in reference to a point in time.  Give the film an infinitely large framerate, and you'll have physical(spatial) points in the frame be continually existant.  Problem solved.  A "point" in time is just a instantaneous slice of existence for us to look at."

And WesDawg's example is the real-world experiment to test Einstein's theory of relativity.  One of the conclusions, in general terms, is bundles of matter (like a person, or even an aircraft) have different time frames, depending on their speed.  The faster you travel, the slower your time frame becomes, relative to objects moving slower than you.  So, if the pilot who travelled faster (very, very fast) watched his clock as he flew by, he/she would think was operating at the normal, usually perceived speed.  But outside his craft, the rest of the world (or some other slower frame of reference) would seem to be moving faster, whose clocks would seem to move along faster.  A minute on the earth would seem to go faster than a minute in the craft (according to the pilot).  Conversely, if we're on the earth, a minute on his craft would seem slower than a minute we measure here; the pilot's clock slowed down, according to us.  Therefore, from the pilot's perspective, he "moved forward in time."

For particles above the atomic level, the math works out just fine for the phenomenon mentioned above.  For subatomic particles, and even smaller, things get CRAZY, and we haven't been able to measure it well.

Come again for another brain-busting episode of MR. WIZARD'S WORLD.

[PaLaDiN]

Why did I bring up the fourth dimension?

How did I know this was going to happen?

Oh well.

Just to add to the confusion.

Try both dragging and shift-dragging... press stereo for stereoscopy. If you have no idea how to do stereoscopy (it's a bit like Magic Eye, pretty fun), get some 3D glasses instead.  

[KDR_11k]

Profesional: That doesn't prove time to be dimensional. If you ask me, it's because the energy needed for movement reduces the amount of energy the particles would have at their disposal (a particle cannot get faster than lightspeed). Anything travelling on the moving object would move slower since it needs more energy to move (energy usage is exponential). Any actions would happen slower since things cannot move as fast anymore. Especially with clocks and such things, the movement speed of the electrons is critical for the result.
Relative time doesn't prove a thing about dimensional time, though. Time is often claimed to be a dimension we move through at a more or less constant speed and maybe could even travel through. However, there's no reason for a dimension we're moving through to act as "time". If you're moving, you have one location. Anyone looking at a point where you previously were would not find you there (since you're somewhere else). Furthermore, for movement to happen, we need time to pass. If this time was dimensional, it couldn't pass (since it'd be movement). Also, if we believe the theories about time travel, time is like a graph. That means, no matter where you look, everything is already there and nothing ever changes. And everything has an infinite length. Now, if we said something is moving through time slower, how would it do so? By writing itself slower than everything else? Which means that it would 1, increase mass and 2, not be there if something wrote itself faster and looked for the slow object. The problem with a dimension is that things can only exist in one point in a dimension, not in every. And that things wouldn't move along it without some other form of time passing.
Sorry for repetitions, bad explainations, etc. I have trouble putting my thoughts into words. I think there's some form of non-dimensional time that passes independantly of anything happening in space"time".

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

KDR:  For clarity's sake, the bit about relativity wasn't part my argument, it was just another comment about another post.  The film strip bit, however weak it was, was my shot at an argument.  (I had NO intention of joining the two ideas)  But you knew what I was trying to get at originally, right?  "Creative" aspects people have theorized of time have shown to be practical in some gameplay.  As time passes, we can move.  If time [miraculously] reversed, the motions would occur reversed.  I had games like PoP and maybe Blinx in mind.  What we see on the screen as they're played for specified lengths of time may be regarded as movie(s).  Whenever that neato "time reversal" trick occurs in gameplay, the "movie" plays in reverse and thus the objects and matter move in reverse to previous state/position.  So, we've got "movement" back & forth thru time within the game's universe.  Now I don't seem to know what my point is anymore, but you understand my background, right?

You seem to have a good amount of this stuff fresh in your head.  When's the last time you studied modern physics?

[KDR_11k]

Oh, I still have (err, had a few eeks ago) physics in school, but the last half year I haven't listened to the teacher anymore (too many formulas, too little explaination of which ones matter, what they do, grades no longer important anyway, etc). Sometimes I talk with friends about that stuff, though.