Question

What is the best way to visualize the 4th dimension?

Answer 1

in dreamz.............

Answer 2

projections onto R^3; or R^2

Answer 3

how is this amistre64

Answer 4

I can't do better then Carl Sagan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc0

Answer 5

go to a busy street corner---gaze a meter away from the reflection in the large store windows for a while---return your gaze to the real world----now look in a parallel line with your perifrial vision to see the reflection and the real world togther----work for you?

Answer 6

Go toBuckminster Fuller's 1975 book, Synergetics. It is online. Google Synergetics and go to paragraph 966.02. You may want read the entire section on dimensionality. Contrary to popular belief, the 4th dimension is not time and is represented by the geometry of the tetrahedron. Great read!

Answer 7

I'm a bit late to this but here's something http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkxieS-6WuA it's "Imagining the 10th dimension." They pass by 4 in the process obviously. I'm not sure it's a great way to visualize it but try it out. Besides, it's a fun video

Answer 8

I'm not sure but I think that visualizing the 4th dimension is not possible, as it is considered to be the time. So in theory you can just imagine how it can be: all our 3D world travelling in the time dimension. Hope I help :)

Answer 9

Time is one of those iffy subjects. Time is not considered a dimension in the sense as a specific orthoganally intersecting plane.

But, I had watched an interesting presentation that demonstrated how an entire 3d object can be projected onto a 2d plane; and the concept is really similar to that of a stained glass window letting light into a room.

You pick a point above the 3d object, lets say a sphere; and project lines in all directions like a light bulb. The straight lines that come from the point and interact with the sphere carry the information along until they hit the 2d "projection screen" and reveal all the information at once.

I wish I could remember the name of the presentation, but I recall it started out with a lizard crawling off a 2d page ...

The other option is to try to visualize 3d slices of it, but without knowing the 4d objects orientation; that can be tricky enough.