4Dshapes. Hypercubes for dummies.

[mummytait]

Does anyone know an easy way of describing to a semi intelligent art student how 4 dimensional shapes work? A practical description in laymans terms would be amazing. A good link would also be cool.

[longneck]

http://dogfeathers.com/java/hyprcube.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract

4D geometry is hard to imagine but the analogy I find most useful is that from Abbotts Flatland. i.e.- If we lived in a 2D world, and a 3D sphere were to pass through this world, it would only be observable as a 2d circle gradually getting larger, then smaller as the sphere passed through. So, if a 4D shape were to pass through our 3D world, we might observe a 3D object getting larger, then smaller. Bear in mind the idea of 4 spacial dimentions is complete theory, and we may not even live in a 3D world!

[what?]

This is a gif from my teacher's web...

http://www.im.pwr.wroc.pl/~tjurlew/Hipercubus.gif

Shows 4D cubic - have no idea why it's moving ;)

[mummytait]

Thank you Thank You Thank you!!! I think it's one of those notions that you need to have explained to you in lots of different ways and you can build up your own interpretation in your own language. cheers!!!

p.s. open to other answers!!!

[potterfan3]

4D will be hard for use humans to understand because we are designed to think in 3D
However on stargate sg1-true science, there was this guy who had a chip planted in the middle of his neurone in his arm and he could control machines with it (this was a true story not an episode), he wants one put in the main nervouse control thing in his brain. He beleives this will help him think in 5D