- Bragdon tried to explain the potential method to visualize the “four dimensional” forms, even though they are “invisible to sight.” Despite its remote connection to architecture, there are a few inspiring points of this text. (1) the reason for we have difficulty in accepting the reality that is not contained in our experience is that our perception and idea of space is partial. That does not mean the higher dimensional space is non-existant. We are just lacking corresponding perceptive ability (2) since the particular dimensional order can only be apprehended by consciousness that bears an exact relation to the amplitude of motion in space of which the vehicle is capable, the expression of the fourth dimension is descriptive of an unfamiliar power of movement in an unknown medium related to the movements and the media known to us by an orderly sequence of evolution; (3) if we sort the spaces by dimensionality, each space is generated by the one below it, meaning that the dimensionalities of all spaces lower than itself are patent, and those higher than itself are latent. And conceiving of each space as the cross-section of the next higher space; (4) Bragdon came to the definition applicable to a space of any dimensionality: “A space is that which separates two portions of the next higher space from each other. Also, Any space can generate its next higher space by moving in new direction, that is, a direction not contained within itself.” (5) there is a direction extending at right angles to every direction that we know, and this movement would lead to the higher dimensional space. Yet we cannot point to it because it involves a power of movement which we do not possess. (6) our sense of time may be an imperfect sense of space. The fourth dimension cannot manifest itself in our three-dimensional powers of perception as space, it can, and perhaps does, manifest itself as time. In other words, one manner of conceiving the fourth dimension, therefore, is as space changing in time.
LIYANG DING 