Wavelength could add a dimension. For example, if you have an optical disc (2D) that can be read and written separately by red and blue lasers, that makes it 3D.
That’s neat, so it’s using a trick of mathematics and physics to store info in greater dimensionality than just what the physical universe is limited to? Kinda like how we can use coordinates to represent 4d points on a graph even if we can’t really visualize it?
Yes. Generally, “three dimensions” refers to three spatial dimensions: left/right, up/down, forward/backward. And then the fourth dimension is usually time. But if you’re not talking about movement in space/time, you can have as many dimensions as you want. For example, in a video game, you can have movement in three dimensions, but you could also allow the player to move through time (fourth dimension), change characters that interact with the world differently (fifth), and so on.
Wavelength could add a dimension. For example, if you have an optical disc (2D) that can be read and written separately by red and blue lasers, that makes it 3D.
That’s neat, so it’s using a trick of mathematics and physics to store info in greater dimensionality than just what the physical universe is limited to? Kinda like how we can use coordinates to represent 4d points on a graph even if we can’t really visualize it?
Yes. Generally, “three dimensions” refers to three spatial dimensions: left/right, up/down, forward/backward. And then the fourth dimension is usually time. But if you’re not talking about movement in space/time, you can have as many dimensions as you want. For example, in a video game, you can have movement in three dimensions, but you could also allow the player to move through time (fourth dimension), change characters that interact with the world differently (fifth), and so on.