Hinton - The Fourth Dimension.pdf

APPENDIX I: THE MODELS 241
The fourth dimension appeared to us as the duration
of the block.
If a bit of our matter were to be subjected to the same
motion it would be instantly removed out of our space.
Being thin in the fourth dimension it is at once taken
out of our space by a motion in the fourth dimension.
But the tesseract block we represent, having length in
the fourth dimension remains steadily before our eyes for
three minutes, when it is subjected to this transverse
motion.
We have now to form representations of the other
views of the same tesseract group which are possible in
our space.
Let us then turn the block of tesseracts so that another
face of it comes into contact with our space, and then by
observing what we have, and what changes come when
the block traverses our space, we shall have another view
of it. The dimension which appeared as duration before
will become extension in one of our known dimensions,
and a dimension which coincides with one of our space
dimensions will appear as duration.
Leaving catalogue cube 1 in the normal position,
remove the other two, or suppose them removed. We
have in space the red, the yellow, and the white axes.
Let the white axis go out into the unknown, and occupy
the position the blue axis holds. Then the blue axis,
which runs in that direction now will come into space.
But it will not come in pointing in the same way that
the white axis does now. It will point in the opposite
sense. It will come in running to the left instead of
running to the right as the white axis does now.
When this turning takes place every part of the cube 1
will disappear except the left-hand face—the orange face.
And the new cube that appears in our space will run to
the left from this orange face, having axes, red, yellow, blue.