Kinda reminds me of "Flatland": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland
4D toys
61–70 of 112 posts
Re: 4D toys
#62Kinda reminds me of "Flatland": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland
This book is incredible, it’s hard to believe it’s 134 years old.
Re: 4D toys
#63Can this explain some of the quantum weirdness? Like some of the things quantum entanglement have is due to a forth dimension we are not aware of. Might have to do with general relativity and it is the 4th dimension in smaller scales.
Now where is my noble price?
Re: 4D toys
#64Here's a thought I had watching the bit with 2D man: Actually, the 3D view that 2D man does not understand but which we do understand is... still 2D. My screen is flat. You can use a 2D viewport to render a 3D scene in a way that is natural and easy to understand for us humans: A human watching the 2D scene can very quickly surmise from a glance at the viewport: Which objects are in the scene, and where are they loca…
I don't think the problem is rendering but understanding. Your brain reads a cube, as eh, a cube. If I give you this [2,4,4,6]+ and tell you rzwitserloot that is a cube in the space. You can still imagine that.
So a 4D rendering is just more information in a 2D flat screen. Your brain can't process all of this information. So it "can't see it". But it is there.
+dunno if these coordinates translates to a cube or just some 2-3D object but I hope you get the point.
Re: 4D toys
#65Here's a thought I had watching the bit with 2D man: Actually, the 3D view that 2D man does not understand but which we do understand is... still 2D. My screen is flat. You can use a 2D viewport to render a 3D scene in a way that is natural and easy to understand for us humans: A human watching the 2D scene can very quickly surmise from a glance at the viewport: Which objects are in the scene, and where are they loca…
Study from 45 years ago:
Heinz von Foerster’s 1970-1971 experiment at the Biological Computing Laboratory for apprehending the fourth dimension is unique ... combining four dimensional geometry, stereoscopic vision, and joystick manipulation of objects on the screen. ... The fourth dimension was chosen as the knowledge to be acquired because there was no chance that any subjects would have attempted such knowledge before the experiment. By allowing the physical “grasping” of the visual object, where one hand coordinated movement on three axes in the 3rd dimension, while the other similarly controlled three axes of movement in the 4th dimension, subjects were able to intuitively figure out that the strange succession of transforming 3D objects they were seeing (with 3D glasses) were cross-sections of a single 4D object.
http://psychedelicsandlanguage.com/dimensionality/
Disclaimer: I studied with von Foerster years ago, and he'd mentioned this. I only today found this online reference. I want those 4D Toys. Steam, here I come.
Re: 4D toys
#66This is an old video [1], but it remains the clearest visual explanation of multiple dimensions that I've ever seen. I really can't recommend it highly enough. I think anyone trying to visualize a 4D object will get something out of watching it. I played with the 4D toys app after it showed up on /r/math a while ago. I like it and I think it's useful. My only complaint would be that it's a little too open ended. Whil…
Reminds me of https://youtu.be/K4JhruinbWc?t=110
That was really great, thanks for sharing!
Re: 4D toys
#67The video ends saying that trying to fit a 4D cube in a 4D hole is like a child playing with toy blocks. Hypothetically, if a child was raised with regular VR simulations that allowed the child to manipulate 4D objects, would their brain "learn" it and in a way unlock the 4th dimension?
I was wondering this too as I watched the video. As an adult I know how physics works and I know that what I'm seeing is not normal based on decades of experience. If you showed this to a 1 year old and let them play with 4D virtual toys for a few years, would they more intuitively understand 4D objects? Or would it still remain foreign due to the fact that they can't see things moving around the fourth dimension?
Re: 4D toys
#68Here's a thought I had watching the bit with 2D man: Actually, the 3D view that 2D man does not understand but which we do understand is... still 2D. My screen is flat. You can use a 2D viewport to render a 3D scene in a way that is natural and easy to understand for us humans: A human watching the 2D scene can very quickly surmise from a glance at the viewport: Which objects are in the scene, and where are they loca…
Wow, I had the same idea a while back and thought about writing some kind of engine which does this - but I didn't even begin to research whether someone already did something similar.
Now I see this on HN :)
So I searched and found this: http://www.urticator.net/maze/
It seems to be exactly what you propose, a 4D world rendered into 3D space. It even has a kind of "stereo" mode, enabling a 3D experience on a 2D moniter.
And to expand on the idea: Once we become familiar with 4D, we can continue and use it to explore 5D, can't we?
Re: 4D toys
#69Here's a thought I had watching the bit with 2D man: Actually, the 3D view that 2D man does not understand but which we do understand is... still 2D. My screen is flat. You can use a 2D viewport to render a 3D scene in a way that is natural and easy to understand for us humans: A human watching the 2D scene can very quickly surmise from a glance at the viewport: Which objects are in the scene, and where are they loca…
The problem is that while everything you see on your (2D) monitor is effectively 2D our brain is good at taking 3D cues (shadows, perspective, parallax etc...) to reconstitute 3D "data" from it. For instance look at 3D rotating cube on your monitor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E10zYKln3g Even though there's no shading, a bad resolution and zero context anchoring it in a familiar setting you immediately see it as…
For your question about 3D being hard coded or learned, I think I remember reading that it’s learned.
This is an old philosophy debate about wheather if I blind person could suddenly see if they’d understand that a sphere is round just by looking at it.
When some people that had had cataracts for 50 years were treated they not only couldn’t tell that a sphere was round, they couldn’t understand shadows or depth of field/distance. They thought shadows on people were black splotches and when something was moving away that it was actually getting smaller.
I suspect visual input gets trained on our neural network like anything else, though we do have some specialized hardware for it.
Re: 4D toys
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that while everything you see on your (2D) monitor is effectively 2D our brain is good at taking 3D cues (shadows, perspective, parallax etc...) to reconstitute 3D "data" from it. For instance look at 3D rotating cube on your monitor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E10zYKln3g Even though there's no shading, a bad resolution and zero context anchoring it in a familiar setting you immediately see it as…
> Could we teach our brain to "think in 4D" and interpret these cues differently? To a certain extent probably, maybe if you spent hours and hours and hours in a VR simulation with 4D objects you'd starting getting a feel for it. I doubt you'd ever get as good as with 3D objects since we've been exposed to these literally every waking moment since we're born.* Good lord! Has anyone tried? This reminds me of the backw…
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