We have now before us a complete catalogue of all the tesseracts in our
group. We have seen them all, and we shall refer to this arrangement
of the blocks as the “normal position.” We have seen as much of each
tesseract at a time as could be done in a three-dimensional space. Each
part of each tesseract has been in our space, and we could have touched
it.
The fourth dimension appeared to us as the duration of the block.
If a bit of our matter were to be subjected to the same motion it
would be instantly removed out of our space. Being thin in the fourth
dimension it is at once taken out of our space by a motion in the
fourth dimension.
But the tesseract block we represent having length in the fourth
dimension remains steadily before our eyes for three minutes, when it
is subjected to this transverse motion.
We have now to form representations of the other views of the same
tesseract group which are possible in our space.
Let us then turn the block of tesseracts so that another face of it
comes into contact with our space, and then by observing what we have,
and what changes come when the block traverses our space, we shall have
another view of it. The dimension which appeared as duration before
will become extension in one of our known dimensions, and a dimension
which coincided with one of our space dimensions will appear as
duration.
Leaving catalogue cube 1 in the normal position, remove the other two,
or suppose them removed. We have in space the red, the yellow, and the
white axes. Let the white axis go out into the unknown, and occupy the
position the blue axis holds. Then the blue axis, which runs in that
direction now will come into space. But it will not come in pointing
in the same way that the white axis does now. It will point in the
opposite sense. It will come in running to the left instead of running
to the right as the white axis does now.
When this turning takes place every part of the cube 1 will disappear
except the left-hand face—the orange face.
And the new cube that appears in our space will run to the left from
this orange face, having axes, red, yellow, blue.
Take models 4, 5, 6. Place 4, or suppose No. 4 of the tesseract views
placed, with its orange face coincident with the orange face of 1, red
line to red line, and yellow line to yellow line, with the blue line
pointing to the left. Then remove cube 1 and we have the tesseract face
which comes in when the white axis runs in the positive unknown, and
the blue axis comes into our space.
Now place catalogue cube 5 in some position, it does not matter which,
say to the left; and place it so that there is a correspondence of
colour corresponding to the colour of the line that runs out of space.
The line that runs out of space is white, hence, every part of this
cube 5 should differ from the corresponding part of 4 by an alteration
in the direction of white.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account