Is it viable to write a story taking place in four spatial dimensions?

Or a separate plane of existence. But its hard for us to comprehend, as it would be explaining the third dimension to a two dimensional cartoon character.
 
So, your story takes place in a Tesseract, or Hypercube, universe then?
I would think that would bring back the Space-Time issue again, unless you put believable and controlled limits on it.

OR, have your 4th dimension be some other spatial location. Just a thought if you want to avoid constant time travel.
 
Another thought just came to mind as far as limitations for your world, going off of the Tesseract/Hypercube universe. What if the characters live in the past and present at the same time, but the future is unknown to them.

They know where they are and where they came from and how they got there all at once, but going into the future would be the same as for us; moment by moment. That way their lives are like a game of chess; strategy on how to get to where they want to be.
 
Biskit said:
It will be hugely complex figuring out a sensible physics to go with that. The two things that instantly sprang to mind is that properties of solid materials would be different depending on how atoms pack in four dimensions (and ignoring what the consequences might be for the nature of atoms :giggle: ), and how will "light" work, or what will replace it? In my head the simplistic "average photon" has a direction of travel, with magnetic and electric field components perpendicular that that direction, and to each other, but in four dimensions what happens? Do "photons" have an extra component in that dimension?
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I took a class in college that covered Maxwell's equations and electromagnetic radiation, and I did notice that the direction of light being a cross product of those fields only works in three dimensions since in 4d there would be infinitely many directions perpendicular to two given vectors (perhaps that's why our space is 3d? Though I've never heard of that before.) I do not know the best way to handle that.

And yeah, it will be complex, although you don't have to specify all the laws of physics of a universe 100% to write a story.
 
We do and are affected by it, but can only move in one direction through it; forward from our POV.
If we lived in a true 4d world, we could freely move in both past and future directions and our view of the world would very different too. How we now see what we see as 3D, would very different and strange, because each of the three directions we see now would be right angles to spatial time.
 
Wayne Mack said:
I'm surprised no one mentioned it, but Robert Heinlein wrote And He Built a Crooked House about a house that collapsed into four dimensions. So the answer to the original question seems to be yes, it can be done.
en.wikipedia.org

And He Built a Crooked House - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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msstice mentioned it in post 3.
And it isn't quite what I'm trying to do; in that story, the characters live in a three-dimensional universe that gets bent into a mysterious fourth dimension. In my story, everything naturally exists in four dimensions; everyone's houses are already four-dimensional, and there is absolutely nothing strange or out-of-the-ordinary about a tesseract.
 
THX1138 said:
We do and are affected by it, but can only move in one direction through it; forward from our POV.
If we lived in a true 4d world, we could freely move in both past and future directions and our view of the world would very different too. How we now see what we see as 3D, would very different and strange, because each of the three directions we see now would be right angles to spatial time.
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But the fact that we do move through time, means (in my opinion) that it is a dimension. When we look up at the sky, the stars we see no longer occupy the particular place in time that we see; some no longer exist at all. They occupy (or occupied) a spacial position at a point in time. Not quite the same thing, but calculating a ship's position required knowledge of longitude, which was impossible to do without knowing the precise time of day.

We know that time is not a constant, and it is quite possible at some point we may have more control over how we travel through it, as we do with the other 3 dimensions. Certainly any story that deals with time travel (in my opinion) deals with movement in the fourth dimension, but just because we don't currently have much control with how we move through it (as also with many scifi stories such as Quantum Leap), doen't mean that it doesn't exist.
 
@paranoid marvin Very true, but in our current 3D reality, we can't travel in the full dimension of time.
We can move up and dome. Left and right. Forward and backward. But being 3D, we can only move in one direction of time, that happens to be future. And yes, movement through time requires movement through 3D space. Thus, for me, proof that time in its fullness of future, present and past, is a true physical dimension at right angles to each of the 3 that we do have control of. If you get what I'm saying...

To truly move through the 4th detention while looking at your bookcase, you will be seeing it from the X plain, and Y plain and Z plain, all at the same time, but at 3 different points in time (PPF) and simultaneously for each XYZ dimension, and in different perspectives (XYZ plains of 3ed dimensional spatial reality.) So, where is your bookcase, and when is it and not there, and what will its location be in perspective to you? :unsure::oops:

But for the sake of a story, we need to place limitations on it, like in DR Who, Star Trek, Quantum Leap, And He Built a Crooked House. A 1D view and understanding of a 1D being moving through a 2D universe, and only being affected by just one direction of that 2D universe; always that one direction, not both. But still asking ourselves, 'But what if in the opposite direction of this one way?:unsure:' And never understanding what 2D really is, in our 1D reality.

In the 4thD, gravity has no meaning, as it is and is not at the same time based on your location in XYZ, each being the floor, and wall, and corner wall, and celling and, and, and all at the same time. So, you are always standing on the floor, because each XYZ is always the floor and wall and corner wall and ceiling in the full PPF of the 4th dimension you know of as being true, while being affective by the one direction of what you call the possible 5th dimension... You would be seeing things in what you would be perceiving as the NOW, while standing on what you would perceive as the FLOOR in each of the 3 dimensions in three different points of time(PPF), in the moment that you would understand as NOW... Thus time is a true dimension....o_O AS I SEE IT... so please don't ask for the math in a 3D world. That's for the Quantum folks...



We forget that when we travel through time, which is existing in all 4 dimensions (LR,UD,FB, Fur Past), we are also being affective by ONE direction of the 5th...:eek: What would that be for a time traveler? XYZT and the effect of?... or is Time the impenetrable wall? Or is thought the being of thought the 5thD?

It's a fractal pattern of multi dimension that will end in reality but go on infinity in thought, where time resounds. :unsure::eek:

SO, the author of the story needs to pick a limit and stick with it. Damn the rest of the other authors and what...:)
Since we don't know anything goes! ;)
 
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I have an alternative view to consider.
SpeedOfLight6 said:
My concern here is that it would be difficult for people to enjoy reading a story when it's impossible to directly visualize what the characters, or any places or objects, could look like.
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Your story might appeal to a limited number of Hard Science Fiction lovers who find the concept attractive, but it would not have the mass appeal of a best seller. I believe this was the question you were asking and not about the actual physics.

How could such a story be made more engaging? You must make it relative to the more general reader, and you do that by writing about how they feel; what it means to them, and how they actually will "visualize what the characters, or any places or objects." It is the metaphysical aspects of the story you need to write about rather than the physics.

So, rather than being concerned at how being in four spatial dimensions will drive the physics, instead, how will it drive your story? Or, instead of spending time figuring out a sensible physics to go with it, spend time on what that actually means to the characters themselves to experience this. Make it character driven.

The bestselling book, The Time Traveller's Wife has a very complicated timeline. It is science fiction (or fantasy if time-travel is fantasy) and yet it has mass appeal because it is actually a romantic thriller, about solving the puzzle. There is no explanation of why or how the time travel takes place. None is required for the story to work.

I'd ask an even more fundamental question - do we all experience Time in the same way even in our 3D world?

We don't really measure time passing in Clock Time. It is much more personal. How many times have you thought that a day went by quickly or more slowly? Or that the years are speeding up as you get older? Or that an event cannot possibly have happened so long ago? Or that a child cannot have grown up?

And even if our brains did measure time passing in Clock Time, chemical and biochemical reactions take place at different speeds. They are dependent upon temperature and atmospheric pressure. Rocks weather at different speeds. Do our brains work at different speeds in different climates and at different altitudes? Does someone with a slow heart-beat experience time passing differently to someone with a fast pulse?

So, how would that be any different in a 4D world?
 
Thinking 3D, perspective by your point in time? 4D, there are 8 other directions to be in...
I would go with @Dave last post. Best POV to consider and approach in writing your story... The Lathe of Heaven approach I believe. If I'm wrong, apologies! :) Just go with wat you feel is best. And just write it...
 
SpeedOfLight6 said:
msstice mentioned it in post 3.
And it isn't quite what I'm trying to do; in that story, the characters live in a three-dimensional universe that gets bent into a mysterious fourth dimension. In my story, everything naturally exists in four dimensions; everyone's houses are already four-dimensional, and there is absolutely nothing strange or out-of-the-ordinary about a tesseract.
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This is related to the broader question of how to handle worlds from the point of view of the natives?

In most stories we have an ingenue who represents us, who doesn't know about the world and experiences it through our eyes while mingling with the natives. Frodo is to Gandalf, or Harry Potter is to the Weasleys etc. etc.

If you follow this formula you will need a POV character who has been thrust into this world and is experiencing it for us.

Alternatively, you can have a voicey narrator who stands in: so there will be a bit of exposition and a definitely slanted narration that describes all the strange ordinary things in a way that explains it to us.
 
@Dave
There is virtually zero chance that what I write could be a bestseller, but I see your point that you shouldn't focus on the physics much more than is necessary to make people understand the story.
 
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