Now, it is obvious that, just as a cube has various plane boundaries, so
a tessaract has various cube boundaries. The cubes of the tessaract,
which we have been regarding, have been those containing the X, Y, and Z
directions, just as the plane-being regarded the Moena faces containing
the X and Z directions. And, as long as the tessaract is unchanged in
its position with regard to our space, we can never see any portion of
it which is in the unknown direction. Similarly, we saw that a
plane-being could not see the parts of a cube which went in the third
direction, until the cube was turned round one of its edges. In order to
make it quite clear what parts of a cube came into the plane, we gave
distinct names to them. Thus, the squares containing the Z and X
directions were called Moena and Murex; those containing the Z and Y,
Alvus and Proes; and those the X and Y, Syce and Mel. Now, similarly
with our four axes, any three will determine a cube. Let the tessaract
in its normal position have the cube Mala determined by the axes Z, X,
Y. Let the cube Lar be that which is determined by X, Y, W, that is, the
cube which, starting from the X Y plane, stretches one inch in the
unknown or W direction. Let Vesper be the cube determined by Z, Y, W,
and Pluvium by Z, X, W. And let these cubes have opposite cubes of the
following names:
Mala has Margo
Lar „ Velum
Vesper „ Idus
Pluvium „ Tela
Another way of looking at the matter is this. When a cube is generated
from a square, each of the lines bounding the square becomes a square,
and the square itself becomes a cube, giving two squares in its initial
and final positions. When a cube moves in the new and unknown direction,
each of its planes traces a cube and it generates a tessaract, giving in
its initial and final positions two cubes. Thus there are eight cubes
bounding the tessaract, six of them from the six plane sides and two
from the cube itself. These latter two are Mala and Margo. The cubes
from the six sides are: Lar from Syce, Velum from Mel, Vesper from
Alvus, Idus from Proes, Pluvium from Moena, Tela from Murex. And just as
a plane-being can only see the squares of a cube, so we can only see the
cubes of a tessaract. It may be said that the cube can be pushed partly
through the plane, so that the plane-being sees a section between Moena
and Murex. Similarly, the tessaract can be pushed through our space so
that we can see a section between Mala and Margo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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