4th, 5th, and 6th dimensions?

Contemplating dimensions:

1st - length
2nd - width
3rd - height

Presumably little disagreement up to now.

But, consider:

4th - position
5th - orientation
6th - time

....seems logical to me. I suspect that few would agree with me though.

Thoughts?

Dear Peter Franks:

"Peter Franks" <[Only registered users see links. ]> wrote in message
news:mW__f.94$_m5.31@fed1read09...

Not really, since these are *difference* measurements...
differences in position of one "corner" to the farthest "corner".


Nope. Position is described by three dimensions. The difference
in position of two "opposite corners" gives length, width, and
height.


Nope. The order/alignment in which you assign the axes provides
"orentiation".


4th.


I do have some...

David A. Smith

Peter Franks wrote:

I think you confuse slightly dimensions and degrees of freedom.

A particle has three degrees of freedom that describes its position.
A local event has four degrees of freedom that describes its spatial
position and its time.
An extended object has six degrees of freedom in space, including three
for the position of some marker point in the object (such as the center
of mass) and three more for the orientiation.

One way to think about it is this: given an assembly of three particles
which we'll call an object, how many numbers do you need to describe
where this object sits?

PD