Theoretically, it’s impossible for us to perceive a 4D creature. That is, unless it broke into our three-dimensional reality.
The book Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott explores the concept of physical dimensions through characters who encounter higher-dimensional beings. The protagonist, “A. Square,” lives in a two-dimensional world called Flatland. When the three-dimensional “Sphere” visits him, Square realizes that a whole world exists that he never could have imagined. Eventually, his interactions with Sphere open his mind to the possibility of even higher dimensions.
Still popular after 140 years, the book showcases humanity’s fascination with higher dimensions, as well as our struggle to understand the concept of a universe where higher-dimensional beings, like aliens, might exist. Let’s be clear: at this point, aliens inhabiting any dimension are purely hypothetical, let alone the fourth dimension. But that fact hasn’t stopped scientists and philosophers from exploring the idea of what a higher dimension would be like. And plenty of thought experiments have already extended our mathematical knowledge of higher dimensions, allowing us to conceptualize four-dimensional creatures interacting with our three-dimensional space.
Higher dimensions are a necessary feature in mathematics as the only way to understand certain concepts. For example, string theory—so far, our best explanation for how the tiniest particles in the universe behave—requires the existence of higher physical dimensions. Otherwise, the behavior of vibrating “strings” that theorists think make up all particles cannot work. Today’s physicists accept the theoretical possibility that our universe started out with as many as 11 dimensions.
Over the years, experiments and mathematical modelling have provided some inkling of four-dimensional characteristics. For example, two-dimensional experiments in both the U.S. and in Europe 2018 showed evidence of a four-dimensional existence because scientists could make logical inferences based on how electrons behave while undergoing a specific change in their electric charge. First, the electrons moved in one direction through an electrically conductive material. When researchers put a magnetic field perpendicular to the material, it forced the electrons to divert either to the left or to the right. The electrons were essentially stuck in two dimensions. Physicists involved in the experiment extrapolated that a comparable effect would occur in the fourth dimension, and that we would see its effects in our familiar third dimension.
In other words, we can see evidence of the fourth dimension in our own. As three-dimensional beings, we cast a two-dimensional shadow. The same principle could be true for four-dimensional beings who could leave traces of themselves in our world. To understand how, let’s start with the basic concept of how different dimensions relate to one another.
As residents of a three-dimensional world, we easily perceive three dimensions: height (or length), width, and depth. We can travel up and down, left and right, and forward and backward. And we know the lower dimensions. The zeroth dimension is a point, which has no height, width, or depth. The first dimension branches out, becoming a line, with length only. Nothing would exist beyond this line to a one-dimensional creature. Two-dimensional shapes, like the characters in Flatland, are what we can draw on paper, like squares and circles. They have both width and length, and they can also travel in these directions. A two-dimensional creature wouldn’t be able to escape the piece of paper they live on, however, because they simply cannot perceive anything other than two dimensions. With the addition of a third dimension, a far richer reality emerges, because now the shape can travel up and down, leaping right off the paper. This is the shape of the universe we know and take for granted.
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