Four-Dimensional Vistas by Claude Fayette Bragdon
page 23 of 116 (19%)
page 23 of 116 (19%)
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III PHYSICAL PHENOMENA LOOKING FOR THE GREATER IN THE LESS After the assured way in which the author has conducted the reader repeatedly up and down the dimensional ladder, it may be a surprise to learn that physical phenomena offer no irrefragable evidences of hyper-dimensionality. We could not think in higher space if consciousness were limited to three dimensions. The mathematical reality of higher space is never in question: the higher dimensions are as valid as the lower, but the hyper-dimensionality of matter is still unproven. Man's ant-like efforts to establish this as a truth have thus far been vain. Lest this statement discourage the reader at the very outset, he should understand the reason for such failure. We are _embedded_ in our own space, and if that space be embedded in higher space, how are we going to discover it? If space is curved, how are we going to measure its curvature? Our efforts to do so may be compared to measuring the distance between the tips of a bent bow by measuring along the bow instead of along the string. Imagine a scientifically-minded threadworm to inhabit a page of Euclid's solid geometry: the evidences of three-dimensionality are there, in the very diagrams underneath his eyes; but you could not _show_ him a solid--the flat page could not contain it, any more |
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