The Fourth Dimension Is Real ✨

A documentary about the hidden beauty of the Fourth Dimension.

00:00:00 - Introduction
00:00:41 - Part 1: History
00:01:37 - 4D in Art
00:04:15 - 4D in Movies
00:07:56 - 4D in Games
00:11:25 - Part 2: Dimension
00:13:33 - Reality
00:18:01 - Part 3: Visualisation
00:19:42 - Orthographic Projection
00:20:28 - Perspective Projection
00:21:33 - Cross-Section
00:23:40 - Part 4: Geometry
00:23:50 - Rotations
00:26:23 - Construction
00:28:54 - Outro
00:30:20 - Credits

●●● Credits ●●●
Script, Voice, Editing: Alan Zucconi

- "Adventure" by @dzasterpeace
- "Doctor Who" by Ron Grainer & Delia Derbyshire

This video was made possible by the support of many patrons on Patreon.

●●● References ●●●

●●● Extra Resources ●●●

●●● Social Links ●●●

[notshabby]

For most of my life I've had little to no trouble describing the 4th dimension. Now picturing it, that's a different story. When I was younger, about 11 years old, I was in my great grandmother's living room watching TV. Some science program was on and I was enthralled. The episode was about flatland. While it discussed the concept of a 2d world, something clicked in my head. I realized that beings in the 2nd dimension, or "flatland", would see things in the 1st dimension and could only differentiate distance with light or the 2d equivalent. I then realized that we are the same, just bumped up a dimension. Everything we see is a 2 dimensional image and distance is only determined by light and shadows, as far as our brains are concerned. So, for the 4th dimension, you just bump everything up a dimension. So a fourth dimensional being would see everything in the 3rd dimension. If a 2d resident was sitting in his room, looking out a window, a 3d resident could look at them and see their internal organs, their entire house, and even the space around their house. Of course, the distance visible depends on the size of this flatland in comparison to the 3d resident. Now imagine a 4d resident looking at us, the 3d resident. They would be able to see our organs, the entire building, every room, as well as the insulation in the walls, and the space around the building. Just like us looking at flatland, they would see every angle, of every being and object. All while staying completely invisible to us. I believe that humans are capable of picturing and understanding a 4d plane, if we had a reference for one. It's impossible to picture it if we don't have any idea as to what it looks like. There is absolutely no shape or image to give us an idea of it's true form. The situation reminds me of the king who had a pet tiger. He loved the tiger so much that when it passed away, he wanted it stuffed so it would remain with him. The taxidermist he gave the job to lied about knowing what a tiger looked like. So with only the skin and bones of the animal and no idea what it looked like, he attempted to recreate it. It looked very goofy and not really like a tiger at all. That's a true story and you can look up a picture of the stuffed tiger. My point is, even though the taxidermist had the skin and bones of the thing he needed to recreate, he failed miserably. So imagine if he didn't have the skin or bones of the tiger. He only had a confusing, vague, and sometimes contradicting description of what a tiger looked like. Now imagine the description of said tiger completely destroyed the laws of physics and simply couldn't exist in a physical form in our universe. It's nearly impossible to fully picture something if you've never seen it. It becomes definitively impossible when you have absolutely 0 references to go by. When literally everything you've ever experienced is from a 3 dimensional perspective, you can not imagine existing in a true 4th dimension.

[WiLDbEAsTGameSHere]

You couldn't understand the 4th dimension? Don't worry, potatoes can't learn algebra.

[DigiDigger]

Wow, you did an amazing job!
I can tell you put a lot of love into this and it resulted in this incredibly high quality and interesting documentary.
I'm honestly really impressed with the quality of this, keep up the good work!

[nickel]

You made an awesome explanation about the 4th dimension, probably the clearest one i’ve ever seen. This vídeo deserves way more recognition

[Jabrils]

I'm a sucker for a good video journey into the 4th dimension. Great work Alan

[nullandvoid]

I am amazed that you captured so many of my favorite uses of 4D and 4D-like moments in games and media, seeing them all together and one video actually sent chills down my spine! Incredible work, thank you for all the time you put into this!

[littlestacy]

The Fez 2 trailer music at the start gave me psychic damage at the thought of what might have been.

[kmvtrack]

a very niche topic but this deserves way way WAY more views and support! for such a complicated idea, this was actually explained super thoroughly and understandable enough to not be completely lost lol:) subscribed!

[CaptainJeoy]

Wow! Such a beautiful video, Alan.
This really re-sparked my old interest in the topic of 4D. Thank you.

[wauthethird]

A documentary about fractals would be awesome, if this vid is anything to go by.

[artificialsugar]

This is the best and most comprehensive explanation/demonstration of 4d space that I've ever seen. You have great examples and graphics that work together to create an excellent, easy to understand way of grasping a complex topic. You introduce very interesting questions with well thought out and explained answers. It's clear that a lot of effort and passion went into the creation of this video, and it did not go unnoticed.

[This_Is_Just_To_Say]

Really great video! I've been working through some youtube videos on fourth spatial dimension, and this one has been one of the most helpful in wrapping my head around it so far. (4d does still give me a bit of a headache though.) It was nice to have it organized in sections, to have the examples in media, explanation on the three visualizations, and a non-evasive answer to the reality segment.

[willemvandebeek]

Thank you for making and sharing this 4D documentary. Absolutely amazing!
Did you know that knots don't exist in 4D space? They will just untangle by sliding over into the 4th dimension. o_O
It's such an alien space, which I think I would know by now, but actually I still don't understand at all...

[Poly_]

you're breaking my heart using the fez 2 trailer in the beginning.
God I wish that game came to be.
anyways, amazing video!

[malimakes]

Unsurprisingly another amazing video! THis was really interesting!

[ayyappaj]

Eye opener 23:47
Thanks for the great video! Mainly from second half of the video it was awesome!

[zaknafein]

Well done, Alan!! It's humbling to see so much love for FEZ. <3

[tdiogo_gamer]

Great video!

How does this still have only 5k views?

[ProtopopGames]

How you find the time to create this astounds me

[scienceontology]

According to Dewey B Larson the Universe is composed of 3 dimensions of space and 3 dimensions of time and in fact space and time are reciprocal aspects of motion which is the primary element. Thus we live in a 6th dimensional world and space-time does not exist without motion.