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The 4th Dimension: Revisted

I just can’t get away from this topic. I know this isn’t very artsy fartsy of me and that I’m betraying my right brain alliance. But, I don’t care. I’m obsessed.

To Dan: Wouldn’t the space between alternate realities be a dimension?

Take away the option of time, and I came up with more scenarios for a possible fourth dimension. So the first three dimensions are (basically) represented as length, width and height. Must the 4th dimension be purely special? Are the only measurable quantities space and time? Do faith, light, or energy register? What about weight? That has nothing to do with anything spatial, yet it may be measured. Weight = force of gravity = energy. Could the 4th dimension have anything to do with energy?

For example, imagine a person with an energy dimension. The person has a length of three feet, a width of two feet and a height of six feet, exists in the present and has an energy reading of 4.2. Maybe in this dimension, different objects have different energy measurements. If these energy measurements were visible to us, maybe we could interpret our environment in a whole different way. Some very high energy objects (like the earth) may pull at smaller energy objects (like people). Maybe, if we were lifted far out of our galaxy, we could see the energy forces playing off one another and the energy would be visible in waves or clouds. Imagine if viewed from an energy 4th dimension, people look stretched as they are pulled towards the earth and as the earth is pulled towards the sun. Maybe objects that looks solid to us would look like pulled taffy in the 4th dimension the distortion depending on their energy measurement. Or, some could be transparent, as light and others opaque like stone.

Matt told me about the hypercube concept: the logical progression of dimensions recognized by many scientist types as the backbone of the 4th dimension. From what I gleaned from Matt, this is a theoretical representation of what the 4th dimension would look like IF changes from the 3rd dimension to the 4th evolve similarly to the progression of the 1st dimension to the 3rd dimension. Theoretically, a 4th dimensional being would be able to look at a four dimensional box and be able to see all of its sides, whereas a 3rd dimensional being would see only see half the sides at any one moment. Also - the 4th dimensional being would be able to touch the inside of the box without going through any of its sides. This is of course all reliant on the assumption that there is a logical uniform progression from one dimension to another.

On to the question of whether or not a book can be written portraying the 4th dimension…

I think the most challenging obstacle in writing about the fourth dimension would be to make it imaginable for someone who can never recognize the dimension. For instance, we know that the human eye is only capable of seeing a small range of the color/light spectrum. We know as fact that there are more colors than we humans can perceive. Yet, try as I might to invent a new color, my “new” colors are simply mixes and combinations of colors within my visible spectrum. They are not new at all. My brain is incapable of imagining color outside of my spectrum, despite the scientific proof that they exist.

Therefore, unless you are able to take the character out of the 3rd dimension into the 4th, they may never be able to conceptualize what the 4th dimension could be. Of course, even if you were able to write about a character visiting the 4th dimension, the readers of the book would not be able to take the journey themselves. They would have to rely on the translation and hearsay of the character. Moreover, they would have to believe in the imagination and intuition of the writer, which the readers would know to be faulty as the writer is in the 3rd dimension and therefore incapable of accurately portraying/expressing the 4th dimension. So, while a book could be written about the fourth dimension, it would be pure conjecture.

There are many possibilities that can be imagined for the 4th dimension. It needn’t just be limited to hypercubes and other geometric shapes. I’ve finally convinced Matt about the possibility of other dimensions and now he thinks that in the future we might harness the power of the 4th dimension and have computers, power sources and houses that occupy the 4th dimension making these objects smaller, lighter and more environmentally friendly. Imagine surgery where the operation can be done without cutting you open making them less invasive and expensive.

Anyway, we’ll probably never know for certain and philosophy is really just a smile on a dog.

posted by Scribbler @ Friday, June 18, 2004