© | << < ? > >> | Dror Bar-Natan: Talks:

Visualizing the Fourth Dimension, and the Simplest Thing I Don't Know About It

Links: 3   CS   Dal   F   Jeff2207   M1   M2   MM   P   RM   Sat   X   X1   b   g   inf   r   vX   wM  

Handout: Vis4D.html, Vis4D.pdf, Vis4D.png.
Sources: pensieve.

Canadian Undergraduate Mathematical Conference, Montreal, July 2013

Abstract. Much as we can understand 3-dimensional objects by staring at their pictures and x-ray images and slices in 2-dimensions, so can we understand 4-dimensional objects by staring at their pictures and x-ray images and slices in 3-dimensions, capitalizing on the fact that we understand 3-dimensions pretty well. So we will spend some time staring at and understanding various 2-dimensional views of a 3-dimensional elephant, and then even more simply, various 2-dimensional views of some 3-dimensional knots. This achieved, we'll take the leap and visualize some 4-dimensional knots by their various traces in 3-dimensional space, and this achieved, I will tell you about the simplest problem in 4-dimensional knot theory whose solution I don't know.

Talk video. .