Scientific Romances (First Series)Hinton, Charles Howard
Philosophy
Scientific Romances (First Series)
Hinton, Charles Howard
Fourth dimension
Much has been said about the fourth dimension of space and the
inconceivability of it to us. Now, if there are beings who live in a
four-dimensional world, they must feel as habituated to it as we do to
ours, and the conceptions which seem so impossible to us must be
every-day matters to them. It would be impossible for us to try to enter
at once into the serious thoughts of these denizens of higher space. But
amongst them there would probably be some with whose occupations we
might become familiar, and with whose ideas we might gain some
acquaintance. Amongst these beings there must be children, and just as
children on the earth gain their familiarity with space by means of
bricks and blocks and toys, so these higher children must have their own
simple objects wherewith they grow into familiarity with their complex
world.
Now it is easy to make a set of simple objects such as these higher
children would use. And it seemed a practical thing to do with regard to
the conceivability or inconceivability of the fourth dimension to give
the matter a fair trial, by going through those processes and those
experiences which must be gone through by the beings in higher space to
gain their acquaintance with it.
When I say that it is easy to make a set of objects, such as the higher
children use, I do not mean to say that they can be made completely in
every part at once. But we can make the ends and sides of them, and we
can look at the ends and sides of them as they appear to us in space,
and we can make up exactly what sides come into space when the simple
objects are twisted and moved.
Just as a being living on a plane could tell about all the faces and
edges of a cube or other simple solid figure by looking at what he could
see when the cube was laid on his plane, and when it was twisted and
laid down again; so we can tell all about the sides, faces, and edges of
a higher solid.
And the project seems less uninviting if we reflect on how complicated a
matter the formation of our own conceptions of a solid are. What a lot
of faces and edges a cube has! And, moreover, it must be remembered that
we never touch or see a solid; we only see the surface and touch the
surface. If we cut away the surface that we first saw or touched, we
come on another surface, and so on.
Now, of course, the surfaces of a solid are given to us by nature in
their right connection and relation. Each of the edges of the cube, for
instance, can be noticed and remarked without any difficulty, and they
are all on the same bit of space, to be looked at one at the same time
as another.
But the sides, faces, and edges of a higher solid cannot be in our space
all at once. They must come separately, be looked at one by one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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