SURFING THROUGH HYPERSPACE: Understanding Higher Universes in Six Easy Lessons
By Clifford A, Pickover
Oxford University Press
Hardcover, 239 pages
The X-Files in 4-D
SURFING THROUGH HYPERSPACE: Understanding Higher Universes in Six Easy Lessons
By Clifford A, Pickover
Oxford University Press
Hardcover, 239 pages
Come along on Clifford Pickover's short,
interdimensional trip and you'll be intrigued, titillated, a little grossed-out
and, ultimately better educated in physics. To his credit, Pickover makes his
explorations accessible to everyone, by providing clear text explanations and
drawings for math-phobes, like myself, as well as multidimensional equations to
delight math-minded readers. In addition, he includes an appendix with puzzles,
sci-fi references, computer code and suggested reading.
To help out 3-D minds to comprehend four
dimensions, the author invokes Edwin Abbott's 1884 novel, Flatland and
focuses on how inhabitants of a 2-D world would perceive visitors from 3-D
beings. Flatlanders might easily think such visitors were gods, able to perform
feats impossible for beings confined to width and length.
So it would be for we 3-D folks in the event
of an intrusion from a 4-D creature. Such a visitor could steal priceless gems
from a safe without opening it, or remove a tumor without breaching the skin.
If that's not freaky enough for you, just wait until you read the description
of the appearance of 4-D beings in 3-D space.
This book is fun, imaginative and serious all
at the same time. Some physicists believe that, in the future, we may be able
to manipulate interdimensional space to travel the distances between stars and
galaxies, now impossibly beyond our reach.
In homage to the television series, The
X-Files, Pickover has created analogs of agents Scully and Mulder, through
whom we investigate the kidnapping of the
I was a little put off by Pickover's
assumption that all his readers would be male. "You" play the part of
the pseudo-Mulder in solving the case. Further, he lamely attempts to create
the sexual undercurrent that is inherent in the Scully-Mulder partnership on
TV. However, Pickover's female agent is no partner. Rather, she plays the
bright grad student to the pseudo-Mulder-professor.
I do urge you to
push past Pickover's obvious need for wising-up in matters of gender equality.
You will discover he is a wise teacher of this mind-expanding physics topic.
Surfing Through Hyperspace :...
Clifford A. Pickover
1999
ISBN 0-319-513006-5
Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
http://www.oup.com
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