Once upon a time, I gave higher dimensions serious thought. I studied math, read Flatland. The 4th dimension was not time but the realm of hypercubes. Just like you can unfold a paper cube and represent it in two dimensions, it's possible to make a model of what an unfolded 4th dimension hypercube (aka tesseract) looks like.
Pretty cool, eh? So very much just the tip of the iceberg. Last night I followed a link from Blogography (Thank you, Dave!) to a site with a flash presentation entitled Imagining the Tenth Dimension. It steps you through each of the 10 spatial dimensions one at a time. So very cool. Rob Bryanton's corresponding book Imagining the Tenth Dimension: A New Way of Thinking About Time and Space is definitely going on my mental list of stuff to read.
For lighter (yet still educational) fare, keep an eye out for Flatland: The Movie starring the voices of Martin Sheen and Kristen Bell. See? Everything cool ultimately starts and ends with Veronica Mars.
Animation used courtesy of a Creative Commons ShareAlike 1.0 License.
One year ago at TTaT: Not just wheelies anymore; Pain, Anguish, Longing...Yes, the Blues; I confess
tags: math, physics, hypercube, 4th+dimension, Imagining+the+Tenth+Dimension, Rob+Bryanton, Flatland, Veronica+Mars
I have to admit, I'm a recent Veronica Mars addict--or at least a semi-addict, since I get home from class in the middle of it, and I don't have a VCR or TiVo...which I'm pretty sure makes me totally unprepared for the fourth dimension.
ReplyDeleteThat 10th dimension flash presentation is fantastic! Thanks so much for posting that.
ReplyDeleteCheryl: Veronica Mars is a nugget of awesomeness. No vcr, eh? I bet you could find most of the scenes you're missing on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteJason: You're most welcome. I was pretty psyched by it myself. Thanks for stopping by.