The Fourth Dimension

by Charles Howard Hinton

Overview

I HAVE endeavoured to present the subject of the higher dimensionality of space in a clear manner, devoid of mathematical subtleties and technicalities. In order to engage the interest of the reader, I have in the earlier chapters dwelt on the perspective the hypothesis of a fourth dimension opens, and have treated of the many connections there are between this hypothesis and the ordinary topics of our thoughts.

A lack of mathematical knowledge will prove of no disadvantage to the reader, for I have used no mathematical processes of reasoning. I have taken the view that the space which we ordinarily think of, the space of real things (which I would call permeable matter), is different from the space treated of by mathematics.

Mathematics will tell us a great deal about space, just as the atomic theory will tell us a great deal about the chemical combinations of bodies. But after all, a theory is not precisely equivalent to the subject with regard to which it is held. There is an opening, therefore, from the side of our ordinary space perceptions for a simple, altogether rational, mechanical, and observational way of treating this subject of higher space, and of this opportunity I have availed myself.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940015472325
Publisher:	Balefire Publishing
Publication date:	09/10/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	270
File size:	14 MB
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About the Author

Charles Howard Hinton (1853–1907) was a British mathematician and writer of science fiction works titled Scientific Romances. He was interested in higher dimensions, particularly the fourth dimension, and is known for coining the word "tesseract" and for his work on methods of visualizing the geometry of higher dimensions.

Hinton taught at Cheltenham Ladies College while he studied at Balliol College, Oxford, where he obtained his B.A. in 1877. From 1880 to 1886, he taught at Uppingham School in Rutland, where Howard Candler, a friend of Edwin Abbott Abbott's, also taught. Hinton also received his M.A. from Oxford in 1886.

In 1877 Hinton married Mary Ellen, daughter of Mary Everest Boole and George Boole, the founder of mathematical logic. In 1885 he went through a marriage ceremony with Maud Wheldon, by whom he had had twin children. He was subsequently convicted of bigamy and spent three days in prison, losing his job at Uppingham.] In 1886 he moved with Mary Ellen to Japan and later to Princeton University by 1893 as an instructor in mathematics.

In 1897, he designed a gunpowder-powered baseball pitching machine for the Princeton baseball team's batting practice. According to one source it caused several injuries, and may have been in part responsible for Hinton's dismissal from Princeton that year. However, the machine was versatile, capable of variable speeds with an adjustable breech size, and firing curve balls by the use of two rubber-coated steel fingers at the muzzle of the pitcher. He successfully introduced the machine to the University of Minnesota, where Hinton worked as an assistant professor until 1900, when he resigned to move to the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.

At the end of his life, Hinton worked as an examiner of chemical patents for the United States Patent Office. He died unexpectedly of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 30, 1907.

In an 1880 article entitled "What is the Fourth Dimension?", Hinton suggested that points moving around in three dimensions might be imagined as successive cross-sections of a static four-dimensional arrangement of lines passing through a three-dimensional plane.