yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Mirrors And The Fourth Dimension


less than 1m read
·Nov 10, 2024

Mirrors do not show us a fourth dimension, but they do show us what a fourth dimension could do to us. First, notice that some things are the same as their mirror image, but some things are not. These two shapes are similar, but they cannot be rotated to look identical, to be superimposable on each other. This is called being chiral.

A chiral shape and its mirror image are called anatomorphs. These two shapes are anatomorphs in two dimensions. No amount of two-dimensional rotations will ever make them superimposable. To do that, I'll need to smash one of them inside out, turn it into its own mirror image, or rotate it in a third, higher dimension.

If I place a sticker here and face that side away from me, notice that the mirror inverts the object, just like a rotation through a higher dimension. The side of the real object that's furthest from me becomes the side of the virtual object that's closest to me. So, what would I look like if I was rotated around a plane in a fourth spatial dimension and then brought back? I would look like that.

More Articles

View All
Caroline Hu Flexer: research shows Khan Academy Kids boosts pre-literacy skills | Homeroom with Sal
Hi everyone! Welcome to the daily homeroom live stream. I’m Sal Khan from Khan Academy. For those of y’all who are new to this, this is a homeroom that we are doing every day, as the name implies, to really stay connected during these times of school clos…
Taoism & The Underestimated Power of Softness
The rigid and stiff will be broken. The soft and yielding will overcome. Lao Tzu. Generally, people admire strength and look down on weakness. We associate strength with being firm and energetic. Strength allows us to accomplish things, fight back agains…
Gordon Ramsay Explores the Medina of Fez | Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted
[Music] I’m in Morocco, North Africa, to discover the hidden colony secrets of this incredible country. I’ve always loved Moroccan food because every bite is steeped in history. Over the centuries, the Arabs, Spanish, Ottomans, and French have all left th…
Photos Reveal the Changing Face of Saudi Arabia’s Women | Exposure
[Music] I’m always surprised when I’m in Saudi Arabia because I go there with a sort of sense of dread of how difficult it will be to photograph and how impenetrable the place is. And then I find myself there and having fun. The women in Saudi Arabia are…
Finding the whole with a tape diagram
We are told that Keisha can run 170 meters in one minute. This is 125 percent of the distance that she could run in one minute three years ago. How far could Kisha run in one minute three years ago? Pause this video and see if you can figure this out. A…
SpaceX and Commercial Space Exploration | StarTalk
I think people conflate two different things here when they talk about the moving frontier of space exploration. If you’re going to advance a space frontier, you have gone farther than anyone has gone before. To me, that’s advancing a space frontier. Anyt…