SCIENCE ‘onsidering that no one ean pinpoint what or where itis, the fourth dimen sion has proved! remarkably inspiring over theyears. The concep! ofadizectionbeyend height, width and depth has intrigued writ- ersand artists rom H. G. Wells to Salvador Dali and has captured the imagination of Hollywood. When Han Sola wanted to es- cape the evil forees of Darth Vades's Em. pire, forinstance, he simply blasted his star thip into hyperspace, ‘Mathematicians as wellas scifi fans have Jong been drawn to4-D; or hyperspace. But Jaymen—and some sciemtisis—have been slow to accept something they could not visualize. Now, however, advances in com: puter graphics are permitting theoreticians {oillustratethisabsiractconcept, and 4-Dis finally coming down to earth. The first world conference on the fourth dimension ‘was held rocently at Brown University, at fracting some 700 enthusiasts from the ‘worlds of art and scienes, According 10 art hisiorian Linda Henderson, who has chron: icled the influence that 4-D shapes have hac (on painters from Duchamp to Mondrian, “Thisideahas caught theattention of people from all walks of life.” In the past, many sci entists have _ followed Einstoin and designated time asthe fourth unit of measurement. But he recent view of many eos mologists—that the uni verse is finite but un: bounded and curving hack on itself—has lee today's hyperspace en- thusiasts to speculate on fourth spatial dimen. jon. The curvature, they eve, Is at extra di- Hypercube: A snapshot of 4-D Emension, To detest it ne could (in theory) shine 2 laser into the ‘id and wait a few billion yeazs: the beam =of light would traverse the universe, like ‘an ant crawling over a beach ball, and eventually wind up shining, on the exper menter's back, The fourth dimension’s chief apostle is £ probebly Thomas Danchof, the mathema: Ucian who organized the Brown conference Images of Hyperspace snd who has created some of the most spell: Uinding computer im ‘ages, Banchoff, who says his passion for 4-D was piqued byan early devo- tion to Capiain Marvel comics, has made sev feral stunning films about his theories. “The Hy, pperoube” given viewers a tour of this basic 4-D ob: jecl. In contrast to the ‘agit veriexes and. six sjuares that make up & three-dimensional cube, the hypercube fas 16 vertexes and eight cube fices. In “Flows on the Torus,” Banckofl depicts the relationship between two pendulums swinging at differ ‘ent rates by showing brightly colored, Goughnut-shaped figures called tori. The ‘curves represent the changing positionsand velocities of each pendulum, * -D snapshot of a 4D object,” “then walk around it ‘and aceamulate enough views to begin to under E seand i might imaginea rotating ED objec: by studyi essentially, is take a 3 Banchol's work was encouraged by land,” the 1884 satireon intolerance written by clergyman Edwin Ab- bott Abbott. Inthatelas sie, 2D er the possibility ofa thire dimension they're visited by a sphere. The Flat can't comprehend thenew measure because they live on a plane—and Banchoff likes to compare their experience to the way earth- Tings might witness 4-D. When the Flat- landers —imagine amoebalike shapes on a pod arecon'tontedby aaphere descend. ce only the part that intersects the pond’s surface, Their fst view is of a point, followed by circles of ing from abov« Banchoff. computer-drawn graphic: Shades of Captain Marv incressingdiameter—uptothelargest atthe sphers's equator—then diminishing circles and, finally, a point that vanishes. Dy anal gy, @ 3-D human visited by a hypersphere would see a tiny sphere, then larger ones, until they began shrinking andl disappeared Signals: Though the theories may sill sound farfeiched, scientists are finding practical applications for 4-D, Statisticians fre using it to plot complex equations that have four variables. The Office of Naval Research, for one, eapects 4D graphs to uncover the relationship betiveen the tem- perature, salinity, biomass and strength of ‘carrents’at particular points in the ozean, so that the Navy can track acoustic sig nals sraveling through water. Geologist Thompson Webb of Brown is using the raphics to draw conclusions about pist climates. By correlating longitude and lati tude with the amount of pollen found in bore holesin the soil and the dept of those Doles, he hopes to chart che ancient bound aries of pollen-bearing plants and thus of temperate zones. The se of hyperspace sraphics to chart the world may be only beginning. Already. physicists are explor ing the idea that the universe actually contains // dimensions. Ifthey are correct, then the Flatlanders didn’t know the half of i even the fourth dimension may be just the shadow of reality SHARON BEGLEY wi SUSQN KATZ Frames fram the film ‘Hows on the Toras* After Hollywood ani H. G. Wells, a science-fiction concent comes down to earth NEWSWEPK/DECEMBER 17. 1984