Surfing Through Hyperspace: Understanding Higher Universes in Six Easy Lessons - Softcover

Pickover, Clifford A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195142411 ISBN 13: 9780195142419

Publisher: Oxford University Press USA, 1999

Synopsis

Do a little armchair time travel, rub elbows with a four-dimensional intelligent life form, or stretch your mind to the furthest corner of an uncharted universe. With this astonishing guidebook, Surfing Through Hyperspace, you need not be a mathematician or an astrophysicist to explore the all-but-fathomable concepts of hyperspace and higher-dimensional geometry.
No subject in mathematics has intrigued both children and adults as much as the idea of a fourth dimension. Philosophers and parapsychologists have meditated on this mysterious space that no-one can point to but may be all around us. Yet this extra dimension has a very real, practical value to mathematicians and physicists who use it everyday in their calculations. In the tradition of Flatland, and with an infectious enthusiasm, Clifford Pickover tackles the problems inherent in our 3-D brains trying to visualize a 4-D world, muses on the religious implications of the existence of higher-dimensional consciousness, and urges all curious readers to venture into 'the unexplored territory lying beyond the prison of the obvious'. Pickover alternates sections that explain the science of hyperspace with sections that dramatize mind-expanding concepts through a fictional dialogue between two futuristic FBI agents who dabble in fourth dimension as a matter of national security. This highly accessible and entertaining approach turns an intimidating subject into a scientific game open to all dreamers.
Surfing Through Hyperspace concludes with a number of puzzles, computer experiments and formulas for further exploration, inviting readers to extend their minds across this inexhaustibly intriguing scientific terrain.

About this title

Product Description:

Surfing Through Hyperspace Clifford Pickover tackles the problems inherent in our 3-D brains trying to visualize a 4-D world. He muses on the religious implications of the existence of higher-dimensional consciousness, and urges all curious readers to venture into 'the unexplored territory lying beyond the prison of the obvious'. Full description

Review:

Clifford Pickover is IBM's Renaissance-guy-in- residence. His job is to play with cool ideas--time travel (Time: A Traveler's Guide), extraterrestrials (The Science of Aliens) and the line between genius and crackpot (Strange Brains and Genius). His latest game is an oldie but goodie: Trying to imagine the fourth dimension.

Like a number of his other books, Surfing is structured as a fiction, in this case an X-Files romance--Pickover clearly has a deep and personal appreciation for Scully (whom he calls "Sally", presumably on advice of counsel). You, dear reader, are the FBI's chief investigator of four-dimensional phenomena. As you and your cohorts chase bizarre manifestations from "upsilon" (4-D up) and "delta" (4-D down), Pickover provides explanations, paradoxes and problems, with many helpful drawings and computer-generated illustrations.

Pickover's book, like every work on higher dimensions, is something of a sequel to Edwin Abbott's classic story, Flatland . Like Abbott,Pickover doesn't just look at the mathematics: "I want to know if humankind's Gods could exist in the fourth dimension." Not for the theologically squeamish, this book is lively, provocative, outrageous and fascinating. --Mary Ellen Curtin, Amazon.com

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press USA
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0195142411
• ISBN 13: 9780195142419
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272