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Spaceways, v. 4, issue 2, January 1942
Page 13
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SPACEWAYS 13 INTO THE FORTH--AND BEYOND by JOE J. FORTIER We're living in the fourth dimension! I mean that statement and I'm positively convinced of the fact. perhaps there should be some conclusive evidence and all that, as well as grounds for my statement, presented. I'm not a scientist by any crude imagination; I haven't any degrees to bolster my ego. In fact, I have never been considered overly bright in high school science; I came close to flunking chemistry at one time. That's past history, though, for those days are dimmed and rapidly disappearing from my mind. However, I believe that this little theory holds some bit of truth despite the fact that it will undoubtedly be blasted wide open by our ingenious master minds. Maybe someone will offer corroberative evidence for or against the idea. About all one can do with such meager knowledge as I possess is to prove the theoretical dimensions one by one. The first dimension is time. Time must be the very first for nothing can exist without a lapse of time. Suppose you are facing a table. Looks substantial, doesn't it? Where would that table be without time? Whiff--no place at all. There would be instantaneous disappearance of all things from this or any other universe without time--including you and me--for, without some passage of time, things would never have been formed. Even the first stun would never have come into existence without this ultra-necessary element of time. Lacking this potent dimension, all space would be devoid of any particle of matter. Length, then, must be the second dimension. Width is useless without length--just cannot be. What the second dimension may be is entirely unconceivable by so small a mind as mine. It is a great doubt that any mortal soul can sensibly visualize just such a thing: a world of time and length. Width, naturally, is the third dimension. Therein lie the flat-land creatures--and even some others! I would like tocover this subject of extra- and lower-dimensional life if Editor Harry Warner thinks it proper and fitting. Then volume is left for the fourth. We are living in this fourth dimension as we said before, and we are the highest living creatures fitted for but one dimension. Yes, there is one more dimension, but that encompasses all others. The fifth dimension is one great curve which enfolds all other dimensions. It completely unites all of them into one great whole. It is this grand feat which holds the spacean territories in a state of cosmic splendor rather than a state of eternal chaos. If time travel is at all possible, a thing that I believe ridiculous and rather absurd despite some fine arguments in favor of it, then it should be through the use of this magnificent warp to advance the future. I do not say that time travel is impossible, but just that it is highly impractical and improbable. Imagine the experience of traveling back a few years and conversing with yourself! The future holds some remote changes, which remain doubtful in my mind, on this gigantic warp in space. If the future has conquered time traveling, where are our marvelous visitors (granted that common sense should deter them from entering the crazy years--score one for the reader)? If this proves at all interesting to any of the readers, I will be only too happy to continue my odd trend of thought as to the things remotely possible in the dimensions. There are even some fantastic vari-dimensional creatures of which I have dreamed. Right now I wish to announce that half of the work is by some sensible explanations for and against the ideas. The two of us will even grant that a couple of followers are on the right track. I think they call one of them Einstein. The End
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SPACEWAYS 13 INTO THE FORTH--AND BEYOND by JOE J. FORTIER We're living in the fourth dimension! I mean that statement and I'm positively convinced of the fact. perhaps there should be some conclusive evidence and all that, as well as grounds for my statement, presented. I'm not a scientist by any crude imagination; I haven't any degrees to bolster my ego. In fact, I have never been considered overly bright in high school science; I came close to flunking chemistry at one time. That's past history, though, for those days are dimmed and rapidly disappearing from my mind. However, I believe that this little theory holds some bit of truth despite the fact that it will undoubtedly be blasted wide open by our ingenious master minds. Maybe someone will offer corroberative evidence for or against the idea. About all one can do with such meager knowledge as I possess is to prove the theoretical dimensions one by one. The first dimension is time. Time must be the very first for nothing can exist without a lapse of time. Suppose you are facing a table. Looks substantial, doesn't it? Where would that table be without time? Whiff--no place at all. There would be instantaneous disappearance of all things from this or any other universe without time--including you and me--for, without some passage of time, things would never have been formed. Even the first stun would never have come into existence without this ultra-necessary element of time. Lacking this potent dimension, all space would be devoid of any particle of matter. Length, then, must be the second dimension. Width is useless without length--just cannot be. What the second dimension may be is entirely unconceivable by so small a mind as mine. It is a great doubt that any mortal soul can sensibly visualize just such a thing: a world of time and length. Width, naturally, is the third dimension. Therein lie the flat-land creatures--and even some others! I would like tocover this subject of extra- and lower-dimensional life if Editor Harry Warner thinks it proper and fitting. Then volume is left for the fourth. We are living in this fourth dimension as we said before, and we are the highest living creatures fitted for but one dimension. Yes, there is one more dimension, but that encompasses all others. The fifth dimension is one great curve which enfolds all other dimensions. It completely unites all of them into one great whole. It is this grand feat which holds the spacean territories in a state of cosmic splendor rather than a state of eternal chaos. If time travel is at all possible, a thing that I believe ridiculous and rather absurd despite some fine arguments in favor of it, then it should be through the use of this magnificent warp to advance the future. I do not say that time travel is impossible, but just that it is highly impractical and improbable. Imagine the experience of traveling back a few years and conversing with yourself! The future holds some remote changes, which remain doubtful in my mind, on this gigantic warp in space. If the future has conquered time traveling, where are our marvelous visitors (granted that common sense should deter them from entering the crazy years--score one for the reader)? If this proves at all interesting to any of the readers, I will be only too happy to continue my odd trend of thought as to the things remotely possible in the dimensions. There are even some fantastic vari-dimensional creatures of which I have dreamed. Right now I wish to announce that half of the work is by some sensible explanations for and against the ideas. The two of us will even grant that a couple of followers are on the right track. I think they call one of them Einstein. The End
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