Unlocking the fourth dimension
Flatland, Interstellar, and the geometry of reality.
Don’t trust the right thing done for the wrong reason. The why of the thing, that’s the foundation.
From Interstellar
I imagine you standing still. Perhaps sitting. You’re still, but reading. Your mind moves. The movement of the mind is called thinking. You are reading what I’ve written; this makes you an observer of a vision. My vision. You’re observing my thought processes, which take the form of blocks of text. And sentences. And words. Reading what another person writes is like stepping inside his head. But now I switch to a question: What’s Flatland, and what’s its connection to Interstellar?
Stay in my vision. Follow me.
atland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
In 1884, Edwin Abbott wrote Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. Abbott’s worldview aligns closely with that of another writer, Lewis Carroll: the multidimensionality of space, paradoxes, absurdity as the very fabric of reality. Yet the absurdity in their works is not simple “madness”, it’s a mathematical – or geometrical – paradox. The White Rabbit is a time traveler, and the tunnel Alice plunges into in pursuit of him can be interpreted as a wormhole. But can geometry become a novel?
Unlocking the fourth dimension
I’m explaining this simply, but Abbott’s book is complex. If you have not read it yet, give it a try, you’ll be amazed. Abbott describes the adventures of a Square who lives in a two-dimensional universe. The Square visits a one-dimensional universe called “Lineland”, a zero-dimensional universe called “Pointland”, and a three-dimensional universe called “Spaceland”.
In Three Dimensions, did not a moving Square produce—did not this eye of mine behold it—that blessed Being, a Cube, with eight terminal points? And in Four Dimensions shall not a moving Cube—alas, for Analogy, and alas for the Progress of Truth, if it be not so—shall not, I say, the motion of a divine Cube result in a still more divine Organization with sixteen terminal points?
Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
The plot is constructed as an extraordinary mechanism of concentric, yet geometrically incompatible and non-communicating worlds. The Square encounters these realities but cannot fully explain them, especially as he realizes that if these different geometric realities could communicate, they would form a “fourth dimension”. This fourth dimension is precisely the one the Nolans use in the movie Interstellar.
The Others
Both Abbott and the Nolans suggest that perhaps our three-dimensional world is being observed from a higher-dimensional reality where “Others” dwell. Who are these Others? Beings of unknown geometry? Unspecified cosmic intelligences? Ourselves in a future geometric evolution? Perhaps the Others are just thoughts, visions of a mind placed in this higher dimension. I guess this idea ignites in your mind memories of things you have already seen and heard. It also stirs thoughts of God, I hope. I think God smiles when we talk about such things. He knows the distance between us and the truth; He knows it in every moment and at every point of our existence; and for each of us. God is the super-observer of the wave-function of the universe. God sees all possible superpositions. Since He is the only observer who can perceive both space and time simultaneously – and because observation alters the quantum system – He creates reality through observation. Anytime, anywhere. For each smallest particle. His omnipotence is also quantum, at least in my mind.
The information paradox
I came to Abbott’s book and Interstellar while researching white holes for my story Nuclear Bulge. As you know, the core of Interstellar is the black hole Gargantua, depicted as a massive, spinning entity with an accretion disk glowing in its gravitational grip. In the real universe, black holes are the “places” where the laws of physics are pushed to their most extreme limits. In Interstellar, white holes are not mentioned, however, one could think that the wormhole in the film might be connected to a white hole. This connection sides with some theories suggesting that matter falling into a black hole might emerge from a white hole elsewhere in the universe; or even in another universe. Quantum mechanics tells us that information cannot be destroyed, it’s the information paradox. If we imagine that information absorbed by a black hole could reappear from a white hole, the solution to this paradox might involve such a structure. This is the concept I am exploring in my story Nuclear Bulge.
Nuclear Bulge
His brain’s sinking into silence. He can hear the sound of blood running in his veins. He detests this damned sidereal silence. His awareness of time has withered like a sun-dried plum. Yesterday, today, tomorrow – all in a single grain of sand. He should have known there was a catch when he signed up for this mission.
All right, I’d better stop. If you have read this far, it means you have stayed within my vision. A vision that exists in a dimension other than your own. It is an intersection of my existence and yours, our “fourth dimension”. Or maybe not.
Either way, thank you for being here, guys.
White hole insights
Bardeen, James M. "Models for the nonsingular transition of an evaporating black hole into a white hole." arXiv preprint arXiv:1811.06683 (2018).
Bianchi, Eugenio, et al. "White holes as remnants: a surprising scenario for the end of a black hole." Classical and Quantum Gravity 35.22 (2018): 225003.
Cowen, Ron. "Quantum bounce could make black holes explode." Nature News doi 10 (2014).
Kedem, Yaron, Emil J. Bergholtz, and Frank Wilczek. "Black and white holes at material junctions." Physical Review Research 2.4 (2020): 043285.
Nikitin, Igor. "Stability of white holes revisited." arXiv preprint arXiv:1811.03368 (2018).
Bardeen, James M. "Black holes to white holes I. A complete quasi-classical model." arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.16804 (2020).
Check: White holes: What we know about black holes' neglected twins
Interstellar insights
Interstellar exploration: From science fiction to actual technology: here
Your writing and ideas are thought provoking, to say the least! Many thoughts come to mind. In the Vedantic philosophy, we do talk about the universal Brahman or the divine consciousness or the observer or the witnessing consciousness or the Atman within us (yes, many names)—that which survives it all and a cosmic force that’s basically, God. It’s a different dimension but the belief is that it lives within you and if try to get yourself in tune with it, you are wise for life! The concept of geometry becoming a novel reminds me of M.C. Escher and his wonderful tessellations becoming art! And I am psyched to read that Gargantua is a black hole. The first known use was by François Rabelais who created the giant called Gargantua, who could eat enormous amounts of food:)
I like the idea of an omnipotent meta observer making the universe, quantum or not, come into existence everywhere, all the time. But it kind of collides with the experiments where a single human being observing a particle decides its state, does it not? If everything was constantly observed and thus rendered into being, the experiment itself should be hard to reproduce?
Or am I out riding a bicycle (a Swedish saying meaning I might not have a clue what I'm talking about here)?