It will be noticed that besides the Vermilion square of this cube
another square of it has been seen before. A moment’s comparison with
the experience of a plane-being will make this more clear. If a
plane-being has before him models of the Black and White squares of the
Cube, he sees that all the colours of the one are different from all the
colours of the other. Next, if he looks at a model of the Vermilion
square, he sees that it starts from the Blue line and ends in a line of
the White square, the Deep-yellow line. In this square he has two lines
which he had before, the Blue line with Gold and Buff points, the
Deep-yellow line with Light-blue and Red points. To him the Black and
White squares are his Models 1 and 2, and the Vermilion square is to him
as our Model 5 is to us. The left-hand square of Model 5 is Indian-red,
and is identical with that of the same colour on the left-hand side of
Model 2. In fact, Model 5 shows us what lies between the Vermilion face
of 1, and the Indian-red face of 2.
From the Gold point we suppose four perfectly independent lines to
spring forth, each of them at right angles to all the others. In our
space there is only room for three lines mutually at right angles. It
will be found, if we try to introduce a fourth at right angles to each
of three, that we fail; hence, of these four lines one must go out of
the space we know. The colours of these four lines are Brown, Orange,
Blue, Stone. In Model 1 are shown the Brown, Orange, and Blue. In Model
5 are shown the Brown, Blue, and Stone. These lines might have had any
directions at first, but we chose to begin with the Brown line going up,
or Z, the Orange going X, the Blue going Y, and the Stone line going in
the unknown direction, which we will call W.
Consider for a moment the Stone and the Orange lines. They can be seen
together on Model 7 by looking at the lower face of it. They are at
right angles to each other, and if the Orange line be turned to take the
place of the Stone line, the latter will run into the negative part of
the direction previously occupied by the former. This is the reason that
the Models 3, 5, and 7 are made with the Stone line always running in
the reverse direction of that line of Model 1, which is wanting in each
respectively. It will now be easy to find out Models 3 and 7. All that
has to be done is, to discover what faces they have in common with 1 and
2, and these faces will show from which planes of 1 they are generated
by motion in the unknown direction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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