Today, every schoolchild knows that the space in which there is a person, three-dimensional, that is, it has three dimensions: length, width and height.But what four-dimensional space?If we examine not only the spatial position of the body, and how it changes over time, that is, processes that take place in three-dimensional space, there is another coordinate - time.Four-dimensional space and consists of three spatial and one temporal coordinates.In this case, physicists and philosophers speak of a single space-time continuum.Time and space are interrelated.In fact, they appear as different sides of the four-dimensional space-time.
four-dimensional space as a unity of time and space is an interesting property, which is a consequence of Einstein's theory of relativity.It is that, with the speed of the body to the light it flows slower time, and the body itself is reduced in size.
imagine a four-dimensional space quite difficult.When we were at school painted flat geometric shapes, you do not experience any particular difficulties - they were two-dimensional (a width and length).It was more difficult to draw and represent the three-dimensional shapes - cones, pyramids, cylinders and others.And imagine a four-dimensional figure is quite difficult even to mathematics and physics.
Of course, the concept of "four-dimensional space" need to get used to.Theoretical physicists used the concept of four-dimensional spacetime as a tool in the calculations, in the world are developing four-dimensional geometry.
theory Einstein said that gravity of the body contribute to the curvature around him four-dimensional space-time.It is not easy to visualize the "normal" space-time, and curved - more difficult.But theoretical physicist and mathematics and do not have anything to present.Curvature of them represents a change in the geometric properties of objects or figures.For example, the length of the circumference to its diameter is in the plane as an 3.14, but on a curved surface it is not so.Possibility of curvature of four-dimensional space theorized in the early nineteenth-century Russian mathematician Nikolai Lobachevsky.In the mid-nineteenth century, the German mathematician Riemann began to explore the "curved" space is not only three dimensions, but four, and then any number of dimensions.Since the geometry of curved space called non-Euclidean.The founders of non-Euclidean geometry did not know exactly under what conditions they can be useful geometry.The mathematical apparatus, which they created, was later used in the formulation of general relativity (general relativity).
Einstein pointed out an interesting effect on the Temporary: a powerful gravitational field time will flow slower than outside it.This means that the time in the sun will go more slowly than on Earth because the gravitational force of the sun is much larger than the gravitational force of the Earth.For the same reason the clock at a certain height above the Earth are a bit faster than on the surface of our planet.
great importance for the whole of science have opened scientists are properties of time, as slowing it near neutron stars, stop time "black holes", the hypothetical possibility of "transition" in space and time of the reverse process.
Out of gravitation appears so-called space - the environment in which the force of gravity on the body or no effect, or the effect is very weak compared to the gravity of the Earth.The stars are in space, and most of it is a space of freedom.
