He must also acquire a distinct notion about his plane world, he must
no longer believe that it is the all of space, but that space extends
on both sides of it. In order, then, to prevent his moving off in this
unknown direction, he must assume a sheet, an extended solid sheet, in
two dimensions, against which, in contact with which, all his movements
take place.
When we come to think of a four-dimensional solid, what are the
corresponding assumptions which we must make?
We must suppose a sense which we have not, a sense of direction
wanting in us, something which a being in a four-dimensional world
has, and which we have not. It is a sense corresponding to a new space
direction, a direction which extends positively and negatively from
every point of our space, and which goes right away from any space
direction we know of. The perpendicular to a plane is perpendicular,
not only to two lines in it, but to every line, and so we must conceive
this fourth dimension as running perpendicularly to each and every line
we can draw in our space.
And as the plane being had to suppose something which prevented his
moving off in the third, the unknown dimension to him, so we have to
suppose something which prevents us moving off in the direction unknown
to us. This something, since we must be in contact with it in every one
of our movements, must not be a plane surface, but a solid; it must be
a solid, which in every one of our movements we are against, not in.
It must be supposed as stretching out in every space dimension that we
know; but we are not in it, we are against it, we are next to it, in
the fourth dimension.
That is, as the plane being conceives himself as having a very small
thickness in the third dimension, of which he is not aware in his
sense experience, so we must suppose ourselves as having a very small
thickness in the fourth dimension, and, being thus four-dimensional
beings, to be prevented from realising that we are such beings by a
constraint which keeps us always in contact with a vast solid sheet,
which stretches on in every direction. We are against that sheet, so
that, if we had the power of four-dimensional movement, we should
either go away from it or through it; all our space movements as we
know them being such that, performing them, we keep in contact with
this solid sheet.
Now consider the exposition a plane being would make for himself as to
the question of the enclosure of a square, and of a cube.
He would say the square A, in Fig. 96, is completely enclosed by the
four squares, A far, A near, A above, A below, or as they are written
A_n_, A_f_, A_a_, A_b_.
[Illustration: Fig. 96.]
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