THE FOURTH DIMENSION SIMPLY EXPLAINED

proportion and other relations of magnitude, but the study of Algebra and Geometry together was first systemized in Analytic Geometry and became thereafter the basis of a great part of Mathematics. Now certain forms of Algebra correspond to Plane Geometry and certain other forms to Solid Geometry. Besides these there are also what might be called one-dimensional forms, and no difficulty is found in realizing the corresponding geometry as a geometry of points on a line, although this geometry would hardly have attracted attention had it not been for the needs of Algebra.

This combination of Algebra and Geometry, which appears at first sight to serve chiefly a an aid to Geometry, turns out to be of greater service to Algebra. This happens in two ways. The language of Geometry furnishes a number of convenient terms for things which would otherwise have to be awkwardly described, and the visual conceptions of Geometry applied to the forms of Algebra make them seem less abstract and easier to understand. We have these advantages for the forms of Algebra which correspond to geometries of one, two, and three dimensions. Yet there is no reason in Algebra for the distinction between these forms and other forms, and when we have become accustomed to apply geometrical terms in Algebra we begin to use them in connection with all algebraic forms and thus to secure the first of the two advantages mentioned as derived from the combination of Algebra and Geometry.4 But it is from the visual conceptions of Geometry
Page 14 that the mathematician gets his chief assistance when he applies Geometry to Algebra, and since the geometries of higher dimensions are necessary to the complete parallelism of the two, he seeks to acquire these conceptions here also by trying to imagine our existence in a space to which these geometries apply. This is especially true of the Four-Dimensional Geometry to which correspond some of the most important forms of Algebra.

We find, then, two ways in which the geometry of four or more dimensions is of importance to the mathematician. The notion of such a geometry as a logical system of theorems involved in a set of axioms is important to the student of abstract geometry, and the conception of space to which these geometries apply is of great assistance in the application of geometry to other mathematics. No one can consider himself completely equipped as a mathematician without some knowledge of the geometries of higher dimensions.

[1] This theory of abstract geometry is referred to in Essay II., p. 58. [2] See Essay XIII., p. 159; see also C. J. Keyser, "Mathematical Emancipations," The Monist, 1906. [3] See also "Non-Euclidean Geometry," by Henry P. Manning. Ginn & Company. [4] See Essays V., IX., and XIV.

II
The notion of geometries of n dimensions began to suggest itself to mathematicians about the middle of the last century. Cayley, Grassmann, Rieman, Clifford, and some others introduced it into their mathematical investigations. Then from time to time different mathematicians took it up in different ways. Thus the first volume of the American Journal of Mathematics begins with an article in which Professor Newcomb shows that a sphere may be turned inside out in space of four dimensions without tearing, and in the third volume of the same journal Professor Stringham has given us a full account of the regular Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com