Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Multiple Dimensions of Time

 


I’m currently reading a Robert Heinlein book, The Pursuit of the Pankera (The Pursuit of the Pankera | Arc Manor Books), in which a group of time-space travelers devised a machine to travel through parallel universes. The key to their machine is they discover that there are three dimensions of space and three dimensions of time. The book’s theme led me to look up how theorists have speculated that there may be more than one dimension of time.

There turns out to be quite several theories about multiple dimensions of time. Enough so there is a Wikipedia page dedicated to the topic: Multiple time dimensions - Wikipedia.

Some of theories include compact time dimensions analogous to the spatial dimensions of string theory, two time dimensions in which one is in real time and one is in imaginary time as with complex numbers, and multiple time dimensions similar to conventional time.

Beyond Heinlein, other popular authors have employed multiple time dimensions including C. S. Lewis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronicles_of_Narnia) and J. R. R. Tolkien (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings).

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