Look at the views of the tesseract 1, 2, 3, or take the catalogue cubes
1, 2, 3, and place them in front of you, in any order, say running from
left to right, placing 1 in the normal position, the red axis running
up, the white to the right, and yellow away.
Now notice that in catalogue cube 2 the colours of each region are
derived from those of the corresponding region of cube 1 by the
addition of blue. Thus null + blue = blue, and the corners of number 2
are blue. Again, red + blue = purple, and the vertical lines of 2 are
purple. Blue + yellow = green, and the line which runs away is coloured
green.
By means of these observations you may be sure that catalogue cube 2
is rightly placed. Catalogue cube 3 is just like number 1.
Having these cubes in what we may call their normal position, proceed
to build up the three sets of blocks.
This is easily done in accordance with the colour scheme on the
catalogue cubes.
The first block we already know. Build up the second block, beginning
with a blue corner cube, placing a purple on it, and so on.
Having these three blocks we have the means of representing the
appearances of a group of eighty-one tesseracts.
Let us consider a moment what the analogy in the case of the plane
being is.
He has his three sets of nine slabs each. We have our three sets of
twenty-seven cubes each.
Our cubes are like his slabs. As his slabs are not the things which
they represent to him, so our cubes are not the things they represent
to us.
The plane being’s slabs are to him the faces of cubes.
Our cubes then are the faces of tesseracts, the cubes by which they are
in contact with our space.
As each set of slabs in the case of the plane being might be considered
as a sort of tray from which the solid contents of the cubes came out,
so our three blocks of cubes may be considered as three-space trays,
each of which is the beginning of an inch of the solid contents of the
four-dimensional solids starting from them.
We want now to use the names null, red, white, etc., for tesseracts.
The cubes we use are only tesseract faces. Let us denote that fact
by calling the cube of null colour, null face; or, shortly, null f.,
meaning that it is the face of a tesseract.
To determine which face it is let us look at the catalogue cube 1 or
the first of the views of the tesseract, which can be used instead of
the models. It has three axes, red, white, yellow, in our space. Hence
the cube determined by these axes is the face of the tesseract which we
now have before us. It is the ochre face. It is enough, however, simply
to say null f., red f. for the cubes which we use.
To impress this in your mind, imagine that tesseracts do actually run
from each cube. Then, when you move the cubes about, you move the
tesseracts about with them. You move the face but the tesseract follows
with it, as the cube follows when its face is shifted in a plane.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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