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
Reflecting functions introduction | Transformations of functions | Algebra 2 | Khan Academy
So what you see here, this is a screenshot of the Desmos online graphing calculator. You can use it at desmos.com, and I encourage you to use this after this video or even while I’m doing this video. But the goal here is to think about the reflection of …
Pollution and human health| Aquatic and Terrestrial Pollution| Khan Academy
Hey there friends! All of my life, I’ve struggled with asthma, and normally it doesn’t bother me too much. But when it’s really cold outside or if I’ve worked out really hard, my asthma symptoms get worse. When this happens, or in other words, when I get…
Orwell - Don’t Let Them Control Your Thoughts
In /1984/, George Orwell wrote, “the two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought.” In the novel, the authoritarian party is interested in having absolute pow…
Volley (W18) - YC Tech Talks: Gaming 2020 (November 9th, 2020)
Hey, how’s it going? I’m Max, um, co-founder of a company called Volley Games for voice control devices like Alexa and Google Home devices. Um, we have the number one most popular game on both those platforms, which is sort of a name-that-tune music trivi…
15 Ways To Grow Your Personality
Personality is more than just looks or manner of speech; it’s how you think, feel, and act that makes you unique. You have to do more than just read a few self-help books to develop a great character, but it is a great start. Personality lights you up in …
Writing a quadratic function to fit data and estimate solutions | Algebra 1 (TX TEKS) | Khan Academy
We’re told Amtha is a high jump finalist at the World Athletics Championships. She tracks the heights of her practice jumps to get an idea of her capability during the competition. And so, this is timing the air intense of a second. This is height in feet…