Extra Dimensions
In 1884, Edwin Abbot wrote a book called Flatland about a 2D world whose inhabitants are geometric figures. Like squares and circles. One day, the square is visited by someone from the 3D world called Spaceland, a sphere. The sphere tries to explain the concept of a third dimension to the 2D square. And fails. In desperation, the sphere yanks the square out of Flatland and into the third dimension. The square is totally confused by what he now sees and says: “Either this is madness or it is Hell.” Eventually though, he comes around and tries to preach the “Gospel of Three Dimensions” to his fellow Flatlanders. But in vain. Plato’s Cave is a famous allegory on the same topic: the cave’s inhabitants are chained inside a cave such that they can only see shadows cast by the world outside the cave. So they interpret the outside world as being a certain way. When one of them makes his out of the cave, he behaves like the square of Flatland: confused and wanting to go back initiall...