Scientific Romances (First Series)Hinton, Charles Howard
Philosophy
Scientific Romances (First Series)
Hinton, Charles Howard
Fourth dimension
Now take a piece of paper and put a dot right in the middle and suppose
that it has no means of passing through the paper. We can only conceive
the dot getting to the other side of the paper by passing round the edge
and coming back again to the position underneath where it was.
But by a four-dimensional movement it can slip round the paper without
going to the edge.
A set of words may help. In a plane a body rotates round a
point—rotation takes place round a point. In space rotation is always
round a line—the axis. In four-dimensional space rotation takes place
round a plane.
To take a farther consideration of this point—a plane being can see one
side or the opposite of a straight line. He can only see it in one
direction or in the reverse direction. But we can look at a straight
line from a direction at right angles to that in which a plane being
looks at it. We can look at a straight line from points which go all
round it.
Similarly, a being in four-dimensional space can look at a plane from a
direction at right angles to that in which we look at it. If we try to
think of this we shall imagine ourselves looking at the thin edge. But
this is not what a four-dimensional being would mean. He would see the
plane exactly as we see it, but it would be from a direction at right
angles to that in which we look.
In working with four-dimensional models it is a curious sensation until
we become used to it—that of looking at a plane at one time, and then
looking at it again; and, although it seems just the same—as square in
front of us as before—realizing that we are looking at it from a
direction at right angles to that of our former view.
And in four dimensions a point which is quite close to a plane can
revolve round it without passing through it, thus presenting to us the
appearance of vibrating across the plane, but not passing through it.
The appearance is as wonderful to us as it would be for a plane being to
see a point which was in front of a line quickly passing behind it
without having gone round the end. Such a point would appear to the
plane being to vibrate across his line without passing through it.
Now if we stand in front of a mirror we see the image of ourselves. If
we were to go round the mirror and take behind it the position which our
image seemed to occupy, we should not be able to make ourselves coincide
with it. In the mirror opposite to our left hand is the image of our
left hand; but if we passed round, our right hand would be in the place
in which we imagined we saw the image of our left hand. And thus we
cannot make ourselves coincide with our image. But by a rotation in
four-dimensional space we could put ourselves so as exactly to coincide
with our image. This can be seen by referring to the case of the
straight line, Diagram IV.
[Illustration: Diagram IV.]
[Illustration: Diagram V.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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