Dimensions
Imagine a 2D ant. Living in flatland. Has no idea of depth. Only length and breadth.
You drop another ant on to this flatland. It seems to appear out of nowhere for the first one. Because “drop” is not conceivable. It requires a height or depth. And that has no meaning in flatland.
If you were a 4D surgeon. And you had to treat inner ear infection of a child. You would not need to make a hole in the eardrum to get to the fluid behind it. You could just appear in the inner ear without travelling from any 3D direction, because you have access to the 4th.
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There’s a little catch : The 3D patient would not see the 4D surgeon's instruments as they are. Only 3D projections of that.
The flatland analogy is : If you put a sphere on a 2D paper, the 2D ant only sees the point of contact as it cannot perceive depth.
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If you push the sphere through the paper the ant sees a circle which is a 2D projection of the 3D object. As the sphere passes through the ants, a circle appears at a point on the paper and then “grows” large reaches a maximum size and then shrinks through smaller circles back to nothing. There’s never a sphere in 2D. Only circles. Likewise you would only see a 3D projection of a 4D surgeon and his tools.
If you are a 3D surgeon to a 2D ant, you can see it’s innards from your God like perspective. You don’t need to breach its 2D perimeter to look inside. You can see it from the “top” at any time and access any part at will. Likewise for us 3D creatures the 4D surgeon doesn’t need to do surgery to get to the “inside”. They can just poke any part from the 4th.
You drop another ant on to this flatland. It seems to appear out of nowhere for the first one. Because “drop” is not conceivable. It requires a height or depth. And that has no meaning in flatland.
If you were a 4D surgeon. And you had to treat inner ear infection of a child. You would not need to make a hole in the eardrum to get to the fluid behind it. You could just appear in the inner ear without travelling from any 3D direction, because you have access to the 4th.
......
There’s a little catch : The 3D patient would not see the 4D surgeon's instruments as they are. Only 3D projections of that.
The flatland analogy is : If you put a sphere on a 2D paper, the 2D ant only sees the point of contact as it cannot perceive depth.
......
If you push the sphere through the paper the ant sees a circle which is a 2D projection of the 3D object. As the sphere passes through the ants, a circle appears at a point on the paper and then “grows” large reaches a maximum size and then shrinks through smaller circles back to nothing. There’s never a sphere in 2D. Only circles. Likewise you would only see a 3D projection of a 4D surgeon and his tools.
If you are a 3D surgeon to a 2D ant, you can see it’s innards from your God like perspective. You don’t need to breach its 2D perimeter to look inside. You can see it from the “top” at any time and access any part at will. Likewise for us 3D creatures the 4D surgeon doesn’t need to do surgery to get to the “inside”. They can just poke any part from the 4th.
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