Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 26 views

    Four-Dimensional Space - Wikipedia

    Uploaded by

    polyglossaibr

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Four-Dimensional Space - Wikipedia

    Uploaded by

    polyglossaibr
    26 views1 page

    Original Title

    Four-dimensional Space - Wikipedia

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    26 views1 page

    Four-Dimensional Space - Wikipedia

    Uploaded by

    polyglossaibr

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 1

    … Search

    Four-dimensional space
    Article Talk

    … … …

    This article needs additional citations for verification.


    (December 2016) Learn more

    A four-dimensional space (4D) is a mathematical


    extension of the concept of three-dimensional or 3D
    space. Three-dimensional space is the simplest
    possible abstraction of the observation that one only
    needs three numbers, called dimensions, to
    describe the sizes or locations of objects in the
    everyday world. For example, the volume of a
    rectangular box is found by measuring and
    multiplying its length, width, and height (often
    labeled x, y, and z).

    The 4D equivalent of a cube is known as


    a tesseract, seen rotating here in four-
    dimensional space, yet projected into
    two dimensions for display.

    The idea of adding a fourth dimension began with


    Jean le Rond d'Alembert's "Dimensions" published
    in 1754,[1][2] was followed by Joseph-Louis Lagrange
    in the mid-1700s, and culminated in a precise
    formalization of the concept in 1854 by Bernhard
    Riemann. In 1880, Charles Howard Hinton
    popularized these insights in an essay titled "What is
    the Fourth Dimension?", which explained the
    concept of a "four-dimensional cube" with a step-
    by-step generalization of the properties of lines,
    squares, and cubes. The simplest form of Hinton's
    method is to draw two ordinary 3D cubes in 2D
    space, one encompassing the other, separated by
    an "unseen" distance, and then draw lines between
    their equivalent vertices. This can be seen in the
    accompanying animation whenever it shows a
    smaller inner cube inside a larger outer cube. The
    eight lines connecting the vertices of the two cubes
    in this case represent a single direction in the
    "unseen" fourth dimension.

    Higher-dimensional spaces (i.e., greater than three)


    have since become one of the foundations for
    formally expressing modern mathematics and
    physics. Large parts of these topics could not exist
    in their current forms without the use of such
    spaces. Einstein's concept of spacetime uses such a
    4D space, though it has a Minkowski structure that
    is slightly more complicated than Euclidean 4D
    space.

    Single locations in 4D space can be given as vectors


    or n-tuples, i.e. as ordered lists of numbers such as
    (x, y, z, w). It is only when such locations are linked
    together into more complicated shapes that the full
    richness and geometric complexity of higher-
    dimensional spaces emerge. A hint to that
    complexity can be seen in the accompanying 2D
    animation of one of the simplest possible 4D
    objects, the tesseract (equivalent to the 3D cube;
    see also hypercube).

    History

    Vectors

    Orthogonality and vocabulary

    Geometry

    Cognition

    Dimensional analogy

    See also

    References

    Further reading

    External links

    Last edited 2 months ago by AnomieBOT

    Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless


    otherwise noted.

    Terms of Use • Privacy policy • Desktop

    You might also like