Understanding dimensions… The concept of the 4th dimension and its mystery…
Before trying to understand the concept of the 4th dimension, if we briefly explain the other dimensions, it will be easier for us to understand the fourth dimension. So let’s consider the dot at the end of this sentence as the zeroth dimension. So there is no size in the middle. Now let’s imagine extending this point with an infinite number of points in only one direction.
Now we have a truth. Now we have passed into the first dimension. In other words, the building block of the first dimension consists of an almost infinite number of points. We can only go forward and backward in this dimension. Now let’s pretend we put too many of these lines in a row until we get a square.
Now we have a plane that has no two-dimensional height. The building block of the second dimension is a large number of straight lines. In this dimension, we can only move forward-backward and left-right. Now let’s imagine that we put too many of these squares on top of each other until we get a cube. Now we have a three-dimensional object.
The 4th Dimension as the Time Dimension
In fact, we also have a time dimension, without which we cannot locate an object in the universe. Let me explain what I mean. Two numbers are needed to indicate the location of a point on paper, or the geographic location of an object on earth (for example, a ship). In this case, suppose the paper or the earth is two-dimensional. But let’s say we need a third number when we want to indicate the position of an airplane. Thus, height also comes into play. Now we have the x, y and z coordinates of the plane.
Now imagine firing a (unguided) missile to shoot down this plane. Both must be in the same location at the same time for the missile to be hit. This requires a new number. This is called the time dimension. Since it is possible to determine the position of any object in the world we live in with these four numbers, we live in 4 dimensions, three spaces and one time.
Together with Einstein, the General Theory of Relativity showed that it is not possible to separate the dimensions of space and time. Since any physical theory that is based only on the dimensions of space but regards time as arbitrary and unimportant cannot fully describe the world we live in, the General Theory of Relativity tells us that it is wrong to consider the concepts of space and time separately, that there is only one reality in the form of space-time.
So, what is the situation of humans in the face of dimensions “beyond” the 3+1 dimension? Can he perceive, imagine, visualize and understand them? Now let’s leave the time dimension aside and try to understand the fourth dimension spatially.
How can we create a Tesseract (Hypercube)?
I just said that the building block of every dimension comes from a sub-dimension. Therefore, the building block of the fourth dimension is the third dimension. Just as many two-dimensional squares overlap to form the cube, so many three-dimensional cubes overlap to form a four-dimensional hypercube. Creates a “Tesseract”, otherwise known as a “Tesseract”. But this overlapping is not an overlap in the sense we know it to be. We don’t know in which direction there is an overlap. In fact, we can’t even imagine it.
From here we can draw the following conclusion. So, a four-dimensional universe, like our universe, is formed by the intertwining of an infinite number of three-dimensional universes. An entity of any dimension can only see a higher dimensional entity than its own when it enters its own dimension. That’s why we can’t see entities outside of the third dimension. We can only see them as they pass into the dimension in which we live. If they want to pass…
This depiction of the tesseract you see on screen right now certainly does not represent a four-dimensional cube. It simply represents the shadow of a four-dimensional cube falling on our three-dimensional world. The situation is even more tragic than that. Right now, you are looking at the reflection of a four-dimensional cube in the three-dimensional world from your two-dimensional screen and trying to understand the fourth dimension.
We can never understand the fourth dimension
In fact, we can never understand the 4th dimension. Because an organism cannot understand something that it has not experienced or seen before. It’s like telling you to imagine a new color. Close your eyes and try to imagine a new color. You won’t be able to. Because you haven’t seen it before.
So what are we gonna do? Shall we give up now? No. We will think more simply. If we were to encounter a fourth-dimensional object, we would only be able to see sections of it reflected in our three-dimensional world. We could never see the original version. Let me tell you how this happened with a story like the one told by the American astronomer Carl Sagan in his documentary Cosmos.
Let’s say there is a flat two-dimensional world, and the inhabitants of this world have no idea what the concept of up means. What if I call out to this circle-shaped friend from the third dimension? He cannot see me. Because I look down on him; there is no up in his world. That’s why the apartment that looks all over his house thinks he’s crazy. Because he hears my voice as if it comes from within himself. In other words, he thinks he is hearing voices from the unknown. For example, if I poke my finger inside his world, those in the flat world experience a circle-like shape. This is the cross section of my finger in the two-dimensional world.
If I take this friend out of the flat earth and into the third dimension, when he looks down on his own world, he will realize that he has entered a dimension he never knew before. Now he can see inside his house even if the door is closed. He can even see inside other people’s homes, behind walls, inside safes, and even the internal organs of his friends living in the two-dimensional world.
Here the same applies to us. If a creature living in the 4th dimension put its finger into our world, we would not be able to see it in its original form, but with a cross-section reflected in our three-dimensional world. So we could see it as a three-dimensional object. If we could go to the fourth dimension, this time we could see behind the walls, inside the houses, and the internal organs of people, just like the stickman living in the two-dimensional world.
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