More thoughts on Planiverse.

[unbibium]

The Planiverse is on an amazon.com list of Ten Books to Change the Way You See the World. It also contains The Design of Everyday Things, which I have also read, and recommend.

And by working outwards from the differences between the second and third dimensions, we can make certain assumptions about life in the fourth dimension:

• A planet would have much more room.
  • There would be a wider variety of geography and species.
  • The population of a planet would be staggering by our standards.
• That which is easier in 2D would be harder.
  • Containers, from cups to river dams.
  • Aerodynamic devices, like sails and flying machines.
• That which is more difficult in 2D would be easier.
  • Surgery
  • Information storage
  • Traffic
  • Machinery
• Aspects of life might also be in the opposite direction.
  • There would be much less respect for the land; littering might not even be a crime. One could build anything anywhere, since there would be so many ways to go around it.
  • Social norms might be looser.
  • Predatory life forms might have less incentive to evolve.

I'd better not think about it too much longer, or blood will start to shoot out my ears.

Comments

[pootrootbeer.livejournal.com]

I think time IS a dimension*, but to assume it should be enumerated as the one immediately after the spatial ones we know about seems short-sighted.

Time should go at the very end of the list of dimensions. Time is the nth dimension!

-Poot
* actually, time is multi-dimensional.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

Well, the whole idea of listing dimensions is a human idea. In fact, both "list" and "dimension" are concepts humans have created to model the outside world. We can list them in alphabetical order if it makes no more or less sense.

Also, the idea of time travel as strictly the fourth dimension, as an H.G. Wells time machine would, isn't plausible; you couldn't change direction without rear-ending yourself. You'd need a fifth dimension in which you can go around your forward-traveling past self. Therefore, it has to be like in that Futurama episode.