THE FOURTH DIMENSION SIMPLY EXPLAINED

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surface may always be compared with a rectangle, which has length and breadth, and a solid may be compared with a rectangular block, which has length, breadth, and height. For the better understanding of the following, we will suppose that the pipe is really what it seems to be at a distance, namely, a single line, in which creatures are moving, which are not human beings, but
Page 194 which have the form of lines without any thickness. In the same manner, we will suppose that the creatures between the planes are not human beings, but that they are what they seem to be from a distance, namely, flat figures moving on a plane. The wire, which prevents them from moving at will, is then also a closed figure, drawn on the plane.

In the line, movement is possible only in one direction; therefore, we will call that line one dimensional space, and the creatures therein one-dimensional beings. In the plane, movement is possible in one arbitrarily chosen direction, and also in one perpendicular to that direction; therefore, we will call that plane two-dimensional space, and the creatures in it two-dimensional beings. We ourselves are three-dimensional beings, living in three-dimensional space. In that space we can move in any chosen direction, then in one perpendicular to it, and again in a third direction perpendicular to the first and second. For instance, you may walk along in a street, then move perpendicularly to the street when you enter a house, and after that move perpendicularly to the surface of the earth by rising in an elevator. Now, the question arises: Is it possible that a fourth direction should exist, which is at the same time perpendicular to the first, second and third direction? That fourth direction we cannot see or draw; we are only able to think and to speak about it. A creature, able to move in the fourth direction, would be a four-dimensional being, and would have at his disposal a four-dimensional space. A one-dimensional being cannot move in two-dimensional space, but he can think about it; a two-dimensional being cannot move in three-dimensional space,
Page 195 but he can think and speak about it. In the same way, we, three dimensional beings, cannot move in fourdimensional space, but we can, by reasoning, find out what a four-dimensional being would be able to perform, and what things might exist in four-dimensional space. We do that by making a comparison with space of fewer dimensions, as follows:

The one-dimensional space can be supposed to lie in a two-dimensional space; the twodimensional space to lie in a three-dimensional one. In the same way, three-dimensional space may lie in a four-dimensional one. That is to say, the two-dimensional space surrounds the onedimensional; the three-dimensional space surrounds the two-dimensional, and thus the fourdimensional space must surround the three-dimensional. A two-dimensional creature would be hindered in its movement by a one-dimensional space lying in its two-dimensional space, if this one-dimensional space were impenetrable; it would be obliged to rest all its life on one side of the line, and it could never come in contact with two-dimensional beings on the other side of the line.

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