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Could hypothetically, our 3d world be analogous to flat world? Could gravity be a 4d machine and our 3d plane unable to see the parts of the 4d machine?

What critical thinking can be used to study this possibility?

marshal craft
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    google "universe is 10 dimensional" (no quotes) to see how superstring theory predicts a 10 dimensional universe (so, yes, it is possible). –  Dec 22 '17 at 16:56
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    You'll find that phrasing this question differently will yield more intelligible answers. Your question seems to be if there can be extra dimensions hidden from human perception. This is discussed a lot din modern theoretical physics but so far nothing beyond the 3 space +1 time dimensional spacetime has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt. Hypotheses for an expansion of theoretical physics using 10 dimensional string theories and things like that exist, though, but the extra dimensions are usually "compact", meaning that it would not be analogous to a flat world in the way you suggest. – MM8 Dec 22 '17 at 17:01
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    This is proposed in brane cosmology (with different dimension numbers), but our's is a wrong SE for it. What one needs to study it more than critical thinking is background in modern physics. – Conifold Dec 22 '17 at 21:46
  • Are you asking if our universe is flat? Also look into de Sitter and anti-de Sitter space. – Alex Strasser Nov 27 '18 at 19:55

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There have been several attempts to model, for example, electromagnetism as being a 4-dimensional manifestation of something occurring in 5-dimensional spacetime (see Kaluza-Klein theory) but none of the attempts thus far furnish us with a universe that looks anything like the one we inhabit: they are mathematical oddities with no basis in reality.

niels nielsen
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