So I'm watching Andromeda

[Wycen]

And they are flying through the "route of ages" and come up to this geometric shape floating in space. I say to myself, "That looks like a 4th dimensional cube" though I've never seen one. I do however know they exist, because I spent the last few months of high school trig trying to draw one for extra credit. Never was able to.

Can anybody confirm it was a 4th dimensional cube?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Tesseract.

-Hyp.

 

[Wycen]

Tesseract.

-Hyp.

Hmm. Now that triggered a memory, it might have looked like an expanding cube.

 

[Umbran]

Never was able to.

Not surprising. It'd be darned hard to draw a tesseract on paper. Imagine making a cube out of clear plastic. Shine a light through it, onto a piece of paper. Trace the lines, and you get a drawing of a cube.

Now, imagine you're a being with four spacial dimensions. Build a 4-dimensional cube out of 4-dimensional plastic, and shine a light on it, and you get a three dimensional shadow. The shadow of that is what you might draw on paper.

http://pw1.netcom.com/~hjsmith/WireFrame4/tesseract.html

 

[s/LaSH]

Ah, hypergeometry. Things the human mind was never meant to imagine, etc etc. That doesn't stop it being fun, of course. (I like that tesseract app.) One fun thing I like doing is 'looking' at 3d objects from a 4d perspective. Now, think about that for a moment. Look at a 1d line. Can any part of it be obscured? No, you're just looking at a line that can't hide behind itself. How about a 2d plane? Nope, not unless it vanishes into the distance - it's all there visible to you. 3d objects seem to break this rule, but only because we can only see them in 3d. If we were to look at them from 4d space, we could see every aspect of an object. That not only means seeing the back and front of a ball at once, it means seeing the inside as well. Now try looking at a person in that way.

I generally go 'eergh' and stop every time I try to imagine this. It's wicked cool.

 

[Nightfall]

This is another reason why I could never stomach the changes to this show. It makes no sense!!

 

[Umbran]

Look at a 1d line. Can any part of it be obscured? No, you're just looking at a line that can't hide behind itself.

Incorrect. Rotate the line so you're looking at it end on, and you only see a mathematical point. So yes, it can obscure itself.

How about a 2d plane? Nope, not unless it vanishes into the distance - it's all there visible to you.

Similarly, look at the plane edge-on, and you see only a line. Again, one dimension of the object is obscured.

 

[Orius]

This is another reason why I could never stomach the changes to this show. It makes no sense!!

Yeah, I know, it's getting really bad. There's been a number of episodes this season which only made half-sense no matter how many time I watched it, and this was one of them. I'm beginning to think Sorbo doesn't give a damn as long as he gets to beat the crap out of someone once an episode.

 

[Nightfall]

That and they can show off T&A.