clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org

MIRROR WORLDS 121
"I've designed a machine that will rotate me into the fourth dimension.
I haven't figured out a way to entirely vault into the fourth dimension,
but even if I have to keep a piece of me here all the time, I can do
some marvelous tricks. But don't worry, the machine is perfectly safe."
You place the device on the cement sidewalk and step on it. "This will
turn me over in the fourth dimension so that I will be rotated into a mirror
image of myself. The machine rotates me about a plane that cuts
through my body from head to groin. Watch."
Sally stuffs her fist into her mouth and gasps.
"I am in complete control. Watch as my right half moves delta and my
left half moves upsilon. When a Flatlander rotates, all you see is a line
segment until his entire body fills the plane again. Similarly, you are now
seeing a planar cross section of my body with all of my internal organs."
"Stop it!" Sally says as she looks at wriggling splotches of crimson floating
in the air. Occasionally, the white of bone appears. It's as if a torturer from
the Spanish Inquisition had sliced you with a huge sharp razor from head to
toe and proudly brandished the thin slice in front of Sally (Fig. 5.2).
"Sally, as I rotate, all that remains is my cross section. Looks like sliced
meat. An Omegamorph could turn us into our own mirror images by
rotating us, in the fourth dimension, around planes that cut through our
bodies. It's just like the Flatlander rotated about a line into the third
dimension and then back down into the second dimension."
Sally steps back. "This can't be safe. Rotate yourself back to normal
this instant."
"Sally, if you wanted to, you could move in close and tickle my kid-
»
neys.
"You are sick."
After a minute, you rotate back into the 3-D universe. You have
returned to normal, except that you are your mirror image. "Pkool I od
woH"
"What did you say?"
You stare uncertainly at Sally.
Sally's eyes glisten like diamonds. For an instant you feel like light
trapped within a shiny sphere. You peer at her corneas, your image many
times reflected as if you are standing on the periphery of some gigantic
crystal, alone in a field of darkness.
One of her earrings has fallen into a puddle. The puddle shivers. You
are mesmerized by the lovely play of light on the clear rippling surface.