Imagining the Tenth Dimension part 1 of 2

We start with a point.

like the point we know from geometry

it has no sice, no dimension

it just an imaginary idea

that indicates a position in a system

a second point then can be used to indicate a different position

but it too is of undetermined size

to create the first dimension

all we need is a line joining any two points

our first dimensional object has length only

no width or depth

if we now take our first dimensional like

and draw a second line

crossing the first

we invented the second dimension

the object we're presenting now has a length, a width

but no depth

to help us with imagining with the higher dimensions

we're going to represend our second dimensional object

as beeing creating a second line which branches off from the first

now lets imaging a race of two dimenstional cratures called flatlanders

what would it be like to be a flatlander living in their two dimensional world

a two dimensional creature

would only have length and width

as if they're the roaylty on a implossibly plain play card

picture this

a flatlander couldn't possibly have a digestive tract

because the pipe from the mouth to the bottom

would devide them into two peaces

and a flatlander trying to view our three dimensional world

would only be able to perceive shapes

in two dimensional crossections

a baloon fro instance

would start as a tiny dot

become a holow circle

which .... grows to a certain size

than shirnks back to a dot

before popping out of existence

an we three dimensional human beeings

would seem very strange indeed to a flatlander

imaginging the third dimenstion is the easiest for us

because for every moment of our lives this wat we're in

a three dimensional object has length, width and hight

but here is another way to describe the third dimension

if we imagine an ant walking across a newspaper

which is lying on a table

we can pretend that the ant is a flatlander

walking along in a flat two dimensional newspaper world

if that paper is now foldet in the middle

we create a way for our flatlander ant

to magically diappear from one position in his world

an be instantly tranported to another

we can image that we did this by taking a two dimensional object

and folding it through the dimension above

which is our third dimension

once again it would be more convinient for us

as we imagine the higher dimensions

if we can think of the third dimension in this way

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