The Fourth Dimension

The fourth dimension is a very strange place for us to perceive. I believe it can be described quite well by this video Forget about your familiar world. But despite the simple explanations and mathematical reasons, I believe its pretty much impossible for us to image the fourth dimension. The process for imagining the fourth dimension is simple. You have a point in space. It has no dimension. You translate the point, and connect the two points with a line. That is the first dimension. You can then translate the line to get a plane or the second dimension, then translate again to get a three-dimensional shape, say a square. Translating the square gets you to the fourth dimension. We still only see this image in a three dimensional way though. As the video explains, we could only see the fourth dimension as an ever changing, three dimensional cross-section of the whole. 

Imagine you are a two dimensional being. Also difficult, but probably  easier than the fourth. Basically, you have less options for viewing the world and interacting with it. On a graph, you have two dimensions, and a location on the graph is represented by x and y, perpendicular to each other. Three dimensions adds z, perpendicular to x and y. A two d being would not be able to see z though, so a being from the third dimension would not necessarily be visible unless it passed through the origin of z, or the plane that the two dimensional being lives in. The two dimensional being would not be able to see the whole three dimensional being, but rather only what was passing through the origin of its z. We could visualize this as not seeing a hand, but rather only a cross section of a couple fingers.

My whole point in this is to allow us (or more honestly, me) to imagine seeing the fourth dimension. Basically, a four dimensional object or being would appear as an ever changing three dimensional shape, or if it stopped moving, a very confusing stationary three dimensional shape. Using the previous example, four dimensional beings may exist in vast numbers, but never bother to pass through our plane of existence.