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
Rebellion | Vocabulary | Khan Academy
Sound the drums of war, wordsmiths, because today I teach you about rebellion. Man, I’m a great influence! It’s a noun; it means war or pushback against a government or an authority, right? The American Revolutionary War began as a rebellion against the …
The Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meeting (From Then To Now)
Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, is without doubt the king of investing. There’s never been anyone with a track record close to his, and it’s unlikely there will be for a very, very long time. Buffett took over Berkshire Hathaway back in 196…
15 Things You Buy That Make You Richer
Poor people think that spending money makes you poor, but that’s not a universal truth. When the average person spends money, they do get poorer; but smart and successful people have figured out ways to spend money and get richer because of it. By the end…
Comparing European and Native American cultures | US history | Khan Academy
In the first years of interaction between Native Americans and Europeans, there were a lot of aspects of each other’s cultures that each group found, well, just plain weird. Europeans and Native Americans looked, dressed, and thought differently in fundam…
Using text features to locate information | Reading | Khan Academy
Hello readers! Today we’re going to talk about how to use text features to find information in a piece of nonfiction writing, like a textbook, an encyclopedia entry, or a news article. Information in these texts is organized with a specific purpose in min…
Comparing animal and plant cells | Cells and organisms | Middle school biology | Khan Academy
So, let’s play a game of spot the difference. Now, if you were asked to spot the difference between these two pictures, you’d probably laugh and say that’s too easy because it’s obvious that this picture of a lion on the left is nowhere close to looking …