clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org
clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org
clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org
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60 <strong>surfing</strong> <strong>through</strong> hyperspace<br />
rassed that the man is so obviously seeking attention. You wish the man<br />
would go away. He does not belong. It's a feeling you frequently have.<br />
You roll up the window. "Sally, I think I can help you understand how<br />
a 3-D retina can visualize a human, inside and out, at the same time.<br />
First consider a blood transfusion for 2-D creatures via a tube that goes<br />
up into the third dimension and back down again into the plane of the<br />
creature. As far as the creature is concerned, you are not breaking the<br />
skin, which might be represented as a line in a drawing. Can you visualize<br />
how 4-D creatures can transfuse us?" (Fig. 3.5).<br />
"Yes, they could transfuse a 3-D creature by using a transfusion tube<br />
that goes upsilon and delta into the fourth dimension without ever<br />
breaking the skin. The same concept applies to stealing objects in safes<br />
without ever breaking the safe wall. Your hand would materialize in the<br />
safe and then dematerialize as you withdrew it. But where does the transfusion<br />
tube really go?" (Fig. 3.6).<br />
"It goes upsilon where the operating room doesn't even exist! Similarly,<br />
a 4-D creature's 3-D retina can see all of your insides without breaking<br />
your skin. This assumes that light rays are reflected into the fourth<br />
dimension—we'll have to research that further. I've memorized Abbott's<br />
nice description of a 2-D creature lifted out of Flatland and looking<br />
down into his 2-D world from a 3-D world":<br />
I felt myself rising <strong>through</strong> space. It was even as the Sphere had said.<br />
The further we receded from the object we beheld, the larger became<br />
the field of vision. My native city, with the interior of every house and<br />
every creature therein, lay open to my view in miniature. We mounted<br />
higher, and lo, the secrets of the earth, the depths of mines and inmost<br />
caverns of the hills, were bared before me.<br />
Sally nods. "We've talked about how 4-D beings would look to us, but<br />
what would we really look like to them?<br />
"To answer that question, let's talk about the appearance of creatures<br />
living in worlds perpendicular to one another."<br />
"Perpendicular worlds?"<br />
"Yes, again I'll start with a 2-D analogy. Consider two planes on which<br />
thousands of intelligent insects live. Their two worlds intersect in a line.<br />
Along the line of intersection are many moving line segments changing<br />
size, disappearing and reappearing" (Fig. 3.7).