yego.me
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.

See Antarctica Like Never Before | National Geographic
The Making of 'Genius' | National Geographic

More Articles

View All
The Strangest Secret By Earl Nightingale
I’d like to tell you about The Strangest Secret in the world. Not long ago, Albert Schweitzer, the great doctor and Nobel Prize winner, was being interviewed in London. A reporter asked him, “Doctor, what’s wrong with men today?” The great doctor was sile…
What Is Life? Is Death Real?
Life is fundamentally different from dead stuff—or is it? Physicist Erwin Schrödinger defined life this way: Living things avoid decay into disorder and equilibrium. What does this mean? Let’s pretend that your download folder is the universe. It started…
What Can We Learn From History? - Little Kids, Big Questions | America Inside Out
It is important to learn the history of the United States because you can learn new things about what happened then and how it is now, and how you can change the world. We learn about history so we do not repeat the mistakes that people have made in histo…
Social consequences of revolutionary ideals | US history | Khan Academy
During the American Revolution, everyone became a little bit of a philosopher. Walking down the street in Boston, past coffee houses and taverns, you might hear ordinary people debating equality and natural rights. Before it was even a political revolutio…
12 SIGNS THAT YOU SHOULD CUT ALL CONTACT WITH SOMEONE | MARCUS AURELIUS | STOICISM INSIGHTS
We often think of our relationships as mere extensions of our daily routines, rarely stopping to consider their profound impact on our well-being. Yet, what if I told you that the quality of your relationships could be the single most crucial factor in yo…
You're Either An Entrepreneur or You're WASTING MONEY | Randall Kaplan pt. 2
What is an entrepreneur, and can you learn to be one, or does it have to be in your DNA? When I was a young kid, I always knew I was going to start companies, but can you learn it if you’re not born with that gene? This is the age-old question you’ve rai…