“I couldn’t swear that I understand that,” I said slowly. “And I
repeat, that it looks like lifting yourself by your own bootstraps.”
The homely simile did not dismay him. He pointed a finger at me as he
spoke:
“You’ve seen a chip of wood bobbing on the ripples of a pond. Now you
think the chip is moving; now the water. Yet neither is moving; the
only motion is of an abstract thing called a wave.
“You’ve seen those ‘illusion’ diagrams, for instance this one of a
group of cubes. (Diagram is on opposite page.) Make up your mind that
you are looking down upon their upper surfaces, and indeed they seem
below you. Now change your mind, and imagine that you are down below,
looking up. Behold, you see their lower surfaces; you are indeed below
them. You have ‘gone somewhere,’ yet there has been no translation of
anything. You have merely changed coordinates.”
[Illustration: _Make up your mind that you are looking down upon the
upper surfaces of the cubes, and indeed they seem below you. Now change
your mind, and imagine that you are looking up. Behold, you see their
lower surfaces._]
“Which do you think will drive me insane more quickly--if you _show_ me
what you mean, or if you keep on talking without showing me?”
“I’ll try to show you. There are some types of mind, you know,
that cannot grasp the idea of relativity. It isn’t the mathematics
involved that matters; it’s just the inability of some types of mental
organization to grasp the fact that the mind of the observer endows his
environment with certain properties which have no absolute existence.
Thus, when you walk through the garden at night the moon floats from
one tree top to another. Is your mind good enough to invert this: make
the moon stand still and let the trees move backwards. Can you do that?
If so, you can ‘go somewhere’ into another dimension.”
* * * * *
Woleshensky rose and walked to the window. His office was an
appropriate setting for such a modern discussion as was ours; situated
in a new, ultramodern building on the University campus, the varnish
glossy, the walls clean, the books neatly arranged behind clean glass,
the desk in most orderly array; the office was just as precise and
modern and wonderful as the mind of its occupant.
“When do you want to go?” he asked.
“Now!”
“Then, I have two more things to explain to you. The fourth dimension
is just as much _here_ as anywhere else. Right here around you and me
things exist and go forward in the fourth dimension; but we do not see
them and are not conscious of them, because we are confined to our own
three. Secondly: if we name the four coordinates as Einstein does, _x_,
_y_, _z_, and _t_, then we exist in _x_, _y_, and _z_, and move freely
about in them; but are powerless to move in _t_. Why? Because _t_ is
the time dimension; and the time dimension is a difficult one for
biological structures that depend on irreversible chemical reactions
for their existence. But, biochemical reactions can take place along
any one of the other dimensions as well as along _t_.
“Therefore, let us transform coordinates. Rotate the property of
chemical irreversibility from _t_ to _z_. Since we are organically able
to exist (or at least to perceive) in only three dimensions at once,
our new time dimension will be _z_. We shall be unconscious of _z_ and
cannot travel in it. Our activities and consciousness will take place
along _x_, _y_, and _t_.
“According to fiction writers, to switch into the _t_ dimension, some
sort of an apparatus with an electrical field ought to be necessary.
It is not. You need nothing more to rotate into the _t_ dimension than
you do to stop the moon and make the trees move as you ride down the
road; or than you do to turn the cubes upside down. It is a matter of
_relativity_.”