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.

How We’re Fooled By Statistics

There’s Still Oil on This Beach 26 Years After the Exxon Valdez Spill (Part 3) | National Geographic

View All

Inside a Civil War Most People Have Never Heard of | National Geographic

This family was luckier than most. After nine days as hostages, these men returned to their loved ones. It was an incredible moment to witness. So in a I too, kind of fear, anger, and hope is present every day in the Central African Republic. Since 2013,…

Physics Nobel Prize 2011 - Brian Schmidt

[Applause] There are few things in the world that seem more constant than the stars in the night sky. If you look up at the Milky Way, you will see the same thing that people have looked at for thousands and thousands of years. But as Professor Schmidt fo…

Parametric curve arc length | Applications of definite integrals | AP Calculus BC | Khan Academy

Let’s say we’re going to trace out a curve where our x-coordinate and our y-coordinate that they’re each defined by, or they’re functions of a third parameter T. So we could say that X is a function of T and we could also say that Y is a function of T. If…

Operation Rocket - Smarter Every Day 39

Hey, it’s me Destin. Welcome to Smarter Every Day. So, I am very passionate about rockets. You probably know that by now. But the reason I am is because my grandfather worked for NASA, and he introduced me to rockets. I knew from that moment when he intro…

This is what 65% of Millionaires ALL have in common...

What’s up you guys, it’s Graham here. So I put something interesting the other day, and that was it: 65 percent of millionaires have three sources of income, 45 percent of millionaires have four sources of income, and 29 percent of millionaires have five …

Surviving a Firefight | No Man Left Behind

One thing you have to understand about an SCES soldier, you know, during them six months of selection, what we do is knock them soldiers down physically, mentally, everything. And they get back up and they keep moving on, and you just keep getting over ea…

Mirrors And The Fourth Dimension

More Articles