The 4th dimension

Let me ask you something, If I tell you that I am a fourth dimension being, how do
you think that I would look like, how would I move through your three-dimension
world? Even before XIX century, the mathematics and physics fields have been
studying the fourth dimension as an overcoming limit of our reality and perception
of this. At present, researchers as the cosmologist Andre Pontzen from University
College London mention: “I can describe mathematically the fourth dimension, but I
can’t mark it”. Because our brains cannot assimilate such a complex concept.
Nevertheless, we can approach to a relative understanding of it by using multiple
analogies and representations.

Dimension is defined by Cambridge dictionary as “a measurement of the

length, width, or height of something”. Everything we know obey these rules. That’s
why, we can start to understand a 4 dimensioned figure by following a simple
pattern:

Let me explain myself… a single point in the space can be explained as a 0

dimensioned figure, it only has a position defined by me, but it lacks of length,
width or height.

Now, If I draw a second point, I can link it with the first one, what I get from
this union is a line, It possesses length, the first dimension. If I stand here, I could
only move to the left or to the right.

I am going to follow this sequence drawing a another line, by merging the

borders of this with the first one, I will get a square, now I have a two dimensioned
figure, that possesses length and height. So, I can move left and right, but also, up
and down.

In order to add an extra dimension, I set up a second square, merging the

two squares by the borders, I get a cube, a 3 dimensioned figure, which possesses
length, height, and width. Now I can move forward or backward, identical to the
real world.
 Finally, by merging two cubes, I get…something. Summarizing: 2 points
form a line, 4 lines form a square, 6 squares form a cube and 8 cubes form a
hypothetical figure called by the experts as “Tesseract”. A figure of the fourth
dimension.

But, how would we see a tesseract? According to scientific community, a 3d

being theoretically would only perceive a shadow of this object: a small 3d cube
that gets bigger and gets small again until it dissapears, but why that!?

To explain this, we can check novel “Flatland”, written by Edwin Abbott in

1884. The story is based on a 2d square living on a 2d plane with other 2d figures.
So, we agree with the fact that this square perceives its equals as flat lines in front
of him.

The square has a common life, until some day, this meets a 3d sphere, for
the square is really hard to interpret this because his world only has forward,
backward, left, and right. His brain doesn’t match the concepts “up and down”.

This sphere crossing the 2d world of the protagonist is perceived at the

beginning as a small circle. While this sphere crosses the plane, the diameter of
the circle increases. At the middle of the travel, the diameter of the circle reaches
its highest point. Once this moment is crossed, the diameter of the circle decreases
until disappear, when the entire sphere crosses the plane.

The exact same occurs with a 4d figure in our 3d plane. Theoretically, we

would start watching a small cube, so, while de tesseract crosses our world, it
would get bigger, until it reaches a maximum size, and then, it would start to get
smaller until disappear.

Let’s put another situation, Imagine a 2d plane, with two closed rooms
separated by an x distance, one of these is empty but the other one contains a little
insect inside. If I may ask, Is it possible for the ant to move outside its room and
enter to the other one? Obviously not, right? But if I, a being of the third dimension,
interfere, the situation changes. For me, is possible to raise the ant to the third
dimension, and put it back to its 2d world, but in the other room. So, adding a third
dimension, it’s possible for the ant to move across two entirely closed rooms.

Yet, let’s clarify something, the insect will not think “Oh, there is my room,
and there is the other room and I am looking everything from upside” No. The
insect’s mind will explode, its brain is not prepared to assimilate an extra dimension
to the ones it has been looking during all its life.

If we extrapolate this situation to our reality, we can state a person inside a

closed room, with another room next to the first one. So, if the 4d beings come,
theoretically, they can pick the human and “raise” it to the fourth dimension, so they
can put it back on its three dimensions, but in the other room. What would the
human see? We don’t know, because we are not able to perceive the fourth
dimension. We know is there, but we cannot perceive it. Nevertheless, there have
been attempts to represent it.

Since videogames are complex systems that interact mathematically and

digitally with many variables, their role simulating unusual situations is really useful
understanding the fourth dimension of the space.

The videogame: Fez, explores this situation in a deep way with its 2d
protagonist: Gomez. At some point of the adventure, Gomez find a 3d magic cube
that allows him to change his perspective. From then on, he is able to change
between different 2d planes to cross a 3d world.

So, walking straight, to cross a wall he needs to align his perspective to the
wall, then, walk to the border, and finally, change to the original perspective and
walk straight.

But, how do this work on a 4d world? Marc Ten Bosch is making a

videogame called “Migiakure”, in which the player uses a character to move across
a 4d map, sectioning the map into 3d slices to move across the macro world. But
that’s the thing, 3 dimensions at a time. So, throughout the adventure, there are
many small objects getting bigger while you move towards them, and vice versa.
As we explain with Flatland case.
 Challenging biological and existential limits will always be something chased
by humanity. It is in our nature, with such an ambiguous concept as the fourth
dimension, results easy to put in perspective when we are heading our intellectual
and even existential limits. But at the end of the day, even a promethean fight is
better than nothing. when maybe, nothing is what we need to set a new approach
on the things we are looking.

“Hypercube” is a Minecraft map that applies the same concept, using 3d sections,
you clear the map reaching a coin that is continuously moving through a fourth-
dimension course.

References:

https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-43372285

https://ecoosfera.com/destacados/cientificos-han-detectado-la-cuarta-dimension-
con-estas-pruebas/

https://aleph.org.mx/como-explicar-la-cuarta-dimension

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFUgMSYlVxE&t=149s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNU5eAqHIRs&t=516s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TomimOHcMnM