Talk:Hyperspace

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[edit] Physics vs. science fiction

With all due respect to the concept in physics, isn't "hyperspace" in the science fiction sense much more common? In fact, didn't the term originate in SF? (I have no references either way, mind you, and neither do the articles.) "What links here" suggests that authors linking to this title want the SF concept far more often than this relatively unknown concept in physics—the fact that this is "serious" while the SF concept is "not serious" (and that's quite contentious) notwithstanding. JRM 14:53, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC)

I agree. Although the physics page is genuine science (unlike the SF concept), almost all people searching wikipedia for "Hyperspace" are looking for an explanation of hyperspace as it is used in science fiction. Sam271828
This article has in fact now been rewritten as a disambiguation page, as suggested way back in June 2005. How do you like that? Sigh... ---CH

[edit] Real-life hyperdrive soon?

Back to reality.
What to think about that. Seriously Take a leap into hyperspace

Reply to David Latapie 01:34, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi, David, anon using IP address 206.78.245.3, etc.: New Scientist is a science news magazine, not a research journal, so it is incorrect to say
New Scientist released a paper based on Heim Theory (developed by Burkhard Heim)
It may even be dubious to refer to Heim theory in the context of encyclopedia articles on scientific topics, where the technical scientific meaning of theory is presumably the one intended, since AFAIK every physicist who has examined Heim's papers have found them inscrutable. I haven't looked at them in any detail myself, but I did notice some disturbing signs in the existing article on Heim theory, such as the unmotivated "field equation" which refers to a radial coordinate, which makes very little sense in formulating a field equation as most physicists understand that term (one would rather expect to see a covariant Lagrangian or something like that, at least if the alleged field equation is presented without further comment).
In general, all these articles mentioning Heim theory [sic] need to be rewritten to be much more cautious in calling these ideas (?) a "theory", and the article Heim theory needs to be rewritten by someone with a solid grasp of modern physics who can put this stuff in perspective. To judge from clues like the one I mentioned above, the present article (which is absurdly fawning in tone) was not written by someone with a good grasp of physics. ---CH 02:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is the point of this article?

I have to agree with Sam: what is the point of this article? It certainly doesn't seem to reflect a solid grasp of the relevant math or physics:

  • The theory consists of the idea that our own universe is connected to other universes through wormholes, and all of the universes are found within "hyperspace". Not even wrong: there is no "theory" called "hyperspace", and whoever wrote this appears to be confusing at least two distinct concepts (sometimes called "wormhole" and "baby universes").
  • the null geodesics are continuous concentric spheres is nonsense: in both math (e.g., Riemannian geometry) and physics, geodesics are always curves; whoever wrote this appears to be confused about the geometrical nature of "dimensional reductions",
  • almost becoming an instanton: now I am beginning to think whoever wrote this was simply writing a hoax article using technical buzzwords,
  • when you try and compare events from one frame to another with the limits our frame imposes you find that while event rates in hyperspace yield a superluminal path that path in relation to our frame moves into the future: definitely sounds like someone's idea an "amusing" hoax article.
  • etc.

This article should probably deleted on the grounds of having no scientific content, and as a possible hoax article.---CH 02:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some specific problems

I nominated this for deletion as patent nonsense. Someone asked for some specific problems. Here you are:

  • In physics, hyperspace is a theoretical entity. There is no theoretical concept commonly called hyperspace in physics. There are similar sounding words like hyperslice, and some physicists have employed this term in popular writings, but not (as far as I can tell) in their scientific work. The only truly well-known use of this term appears to be in science fiction.
  • The geometry of space-time in special relativity with hyperspace added in SR uses a 'flat' 4-dimensional Minkowski space, usually referred to as space-time. This doesn't even make sense. The author appears to be confusing spacetime with "hyperspace". Only the latter is a widely used concept in physics.
  • The differential of distance (ds) in Cartesian 3D space is defined as.. This is one way of writing down the metric tensor of E3, via a line element. But this is only valid in a cartesian chart and it is not the definition of differential from advanced calculus (or calculus on manifolds).
  • In the geometry of special relativity, a fourth dimension, time, is added, with units of c... No, not "units of c". See spacetime and geometrized units.
  • In many situations it may be convenient to treat time as imaginary (e.g. it may simplify equations). No, this is deprecated in all modern textbooks. See for example Taylor & Wheeler, Spacetime physics.
  • We see that the null geodesics lie along a dual-cone. The usual term is "double-cone", and all this is better treated in light cone and other existing articles.
  • If we extend this to three spatial dimensions, the null geodesics are continuous concentric spheres. No, geodesics are always special curves, never spheres!
  • This null dual-cone represents the "line of sight" of a point in space. No, a null ray represents a line of sight, not the null cone!
  • The biggest difference with adding in extra dimensional hyperspace is that the cone spreads out and shortens in height for the hyperspace frame almost becoming an instanton. This is absolute crap.

I think I've said enough. There is not one correct or even sensical sentence in this miserable production. This is without question one of the absolute worst articles I've encounted in WP. ---CH 21:49, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Replace with Disambiguation Page

Most of this article seems to be a big cut and past from the Special relativity article. Rather than have two (unmaintainable) copies of the discussion, I feel its best just to link to the relative section. Hence the big snip. SR also provides more background to the mathematics which is necessary for its understanding. I've added a few references to other uses of the term. --Salix alba (talk) 01:12, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the article is gobbledegook. I'm much less sure that the pain and uncertainty of VFD is a good idea, though. I mean, we haven't even started an edit war over content! Why not either make it a brief article, or perhaps just cut it to a disambig page: hyperspace in SF (perfectly valid); and a link to space-time? William M. Connolley 23:47, 5 February 2006 (UTC).
You might be right. That seems to be the way the voting is heading, sigh... I think there are already existing articles on the science fiction aspects of "hyperspace", etc., but I don't follow SF so I would not be the best choice of editor to make the changes you suggest. ---CH 23:55, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm about to go offline for the night; how would it be if you withdrew the VFD and just radically cut it down to just a few lines, removing all the goo and dribble. And I'll check out the SF in the morning :-). Just a personal opinion but... AFD rarely seems to be worth the effort; its always worth trying to simply redirect to the nearest sensible thing, if there are no fanatics about to defned it. What may be quite funny is that most of the gobbledegook maths was actually put there by the very sensible Michael Hardy [1], though he was just wikifying what was there already... William M. Connolley 00:11, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
OK, a concrete proposal: how about /this? William M. Connolley 00:15, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Excellent work. I'd say withdraw the AfD and just edit this in to replace what's there now. ++Lar: t/c 00:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
You've convinced me. Looks like Pfafrich (Salix alba) already rewrote it as a disambiguation page, but I replaced Pfafrich's version with WMC's version. Reasons:
  • previous version began In physics, hyperspace is a theoretical entity. The theory consists of the idea that our own universe is connected to other universes through wormholes, and all of the universes are found within "hyperspace". But this is wrong because there is no theory known in physics called hyperspace.
  • previous version continued by mentioning hypercubes and so forth, which are irrelevant except as examples of words beginning with the prefix hyper (I did include them as such in the new version, however).
Thanks to all for your help in resolving this! ---CH 04:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Now that the page has been remodeled, it should be taken off the vfd list. -- Crevaner 04:56, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Doesn't that violate some WP rule? If not, go ahead. ---CH 05:03, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
as I understand it, to get an early close everyone now voting delete would need to change their vote, or some sympathetic admin would need to use common sense if it's clear cut... That sort of process abrogation usually raises eyebrows, so I think it best to just point out in a single comment that the article has been changed a LOT and address the specific objections of all the delete commenters. If the closing admin still deletes, bring it up on WP:DRV. I'd support overturn in a minute now, given the way the article is. Note... I would like to see a few more of the references put back in especially to the Cliff Pickover book, but I'm too lazy to actually do the work ... :) ++Lar: t/c 05:15, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Crevaner, I think Lars is right: best to let the process run its course. It seems clear that the result will be keep or no decision. Hmm... Lars, our library has 12 books by CAP but not this item. So all you have to do is put in the year and ISBN. ---CH 05:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
OK, Lar, sorry but User:Mipadi cannot stomach the book citations (strictly speaking Mipadi is probably right about that), and he's removed them. I modified one of his changes which introduced a new terminological error (this is getting a bit comical). ---CH 06:45, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Remember AfD is a discussion not a vote. My guess is the result will be keep (no consus). Current edits fine by me. --Salix alba (talk) 08:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

All interwiki links except et: and possibly vi: (which I don't understand) are to articles about some specific use of the word (n-dimensional space or hyperspace in science fiction). Andres 06:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

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