Surfing through Hyperspace: Understanding Higher Universes in Six Easy Lessons 1st Edition by Clifford A. Pickover (PDF)

Description

Do a little armchair time-travel, rub elbows with a four-dimensional intelligent life form, or stretch your mind to the furthest corner of an uncharted universe. With this astonishing guidebook, Surfing Through Hyperspace, you need not be a mathematician or an astrophysicist to explore theall-but-unfathomable concepts of hyperspace and higher-dimensional geometry.No subject in mathematics has intrigued both children and adults as much as the idea of a fourth dimension. Philosophers and parapsychologists have meditated on this mysterious space that no one can point to but may be all around us. Yet this extra dimension has a very real, practical value tomathematicians and physicists who use it every day in their calculations. In the tradtion of Flatland, and with an infectious enthusiasm, Clifford Pickover tackles the problems inherent in our 3-D brains trying to visualize a 4-D world, muses on the religious implications of the existence ofhigher-dimensional consciousness, and urges all curious readers to venture into “the unexplored territory lying beyond the prison of the obvious.” Pickover alternates sections that explain the science of hyperspace with sections that dramatize mind-expanding concepts through a fictional dialoguebetween two futuristic FBI agents who dabble in the fourth dimension as a matter of national security. This highly accessible and entertaining approach turns an intimidating subject into a scientific game open to all dreamers.Surfing Through Hyperspace concludes with a number of puzzles, computer experiments and formulas for further exploration, inviting readers to extend their minds across this inexhaustibly intriguing scientific terrain.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Amazon.com Review Clifford Pickover is IBM’s Renaissance-guy-in-residence. His job is to play with cool ideas–time travel (Time: A Traveler’s Guide), extraterrestrials (The Science of Aliens), and the line between genius and crackpot (Strange Brains and Genius). His latest game is an oldie but goodie: trying to imagine the fourth dimension. Like a number of his other books, Surfing is structured as a fiction, in this case an X-Files romance–Pickover clearly has a deep and personal appreciation for Scully (whom he calls “Sally,” presumably on advice of counsel). You, dear reader, are the FBI’s chief investigator of four-dimensional phenomena. As you and your cohorts chase bizarre manifestations from “upsilon” (4-D up) and “delta” (4-D down), Pickover provides explanations, paradoxes, and problems, with many helpful drawings and computer-generated illustrations. Pickover’s book, like every work on higher dimensions, is something of a sequel to Edwin Abbott’s classic story, Flatland. Like Abbott, Pickover doesn’t just look at the mathematics: “I want to know if humankind’s Gods could exist in the fourth dimension.” Not for the theologically squeamish, this book is lively, provocative, outrageous, and fascinating. –Mary Ellen Curtin From Publishers Weekly Hyperbeings have kidnapped the president! Prolific Discover magazine columnist Pickover (Time: A Traveler’s Guide, etc.) alternates expositions of math, physics and geometry with episodes of instructional science fiction while showing interested amateurs the mathematical and physical properties of higher spatial dimensions. Familiar analogies from Edwin Abbott’s classic Flatland link up with odder ones from Baha’i and Christian scripture, The X-Files and the superstring theories of modern cosmologists, as Pickover explains how to trap a 4-D organism or why one twirl through a fourth dimension could turn you into your mirror image. Pickover’s usual whimsy is in full force here, as he focuses on what four-dimensional organisms could (or do) look like to us: 4-D lifeforms, he explains, could make any 3-D object vanish (or reappear) by lifting it out of (or dropping it back into) our 3-D space. And 4-D creatures with anatomies analogous to ours would probably look, from our limited perspective, like sets of floating, unconnected flesh blobs. In the book’s science fictional sections, “you” (a Mulder-esque FBI agent) team up with a skeptic named Sally to investigate mysterious hyperbeings. These second-person adventures seem aimed at young readers, though they don’t get in the way of the more sophisticated ideas. Several substantial appendices describe puzzles and games related to hyperspace, while others explain related topics (like the mathematical entities called quaternions) or suggest further reading. Line drawings throughout. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review “Pickover alternates expositions of math, physics and geometry with episodes of intructional science fiction while showing interested amateurs the mathematical and physical properties of higher spatial dimensions.”―Publishers Weekly”Is there, asks Clifford Pickover, more to our Universe than forwards, sidewards, and up? Before I knew it, I was well and truly infected. After explaining how his book would cover all the usual stuff about higher dimensions―their unimaginability, their weird properties, and how physicists think they may hold the key to understanding the Universe―Pickover sprung his trap: ‘I want to know if humankind’s gods could exist in the fourth dimension’….I read the book in two sittings. I’m still under its influence, which is all the more perplexing considering how abstract and unworldly higher dimensions are.”―Robert Mathews, New Scientist About the Author Clifford A. Pickover is a Research Staff Member at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and is the author of many books, including Strange Brains and Genius and Time: A Traveler’s Guide, (OUP). He lives in Yorktown Heights, New York. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The four-dimensional world treated in this book is not the space-time of the theory of relativity, but the world with a fourth spatial direction different from all the directions of our normal three-dimensional space. A number of books on the fourth dimension had already been published. So, why did Pickover, an IBM researcher who published many popular books, write this book? He gives an answer in the preface: The main purpose of the book is to tell the reader the physical appearance of four-dimensional beings, what they can do in our world, and the religious implications of their penetration into our world, with a few simple formulas and computer programs to aid the understanding of the four- and more-dimensional spaces (those who are not interested in computing can easily skip them).The author presents an SF story, in which an FBI agent, “you,” gives personal lectures on hyperspace to his younger fellow agent Sally. Finally they both experience surfing into a four-dimensional world. Meanwhile the reader learns concepts and terms such as “hyperspheres,” “tesseracts,” “enantiomorphic,” “extrinsic geometry,” “quaternions,” “nonorientable surfaces,” etc. The author succeeds in achieving his aim rather well by the use of many illustrations and computer graphics, though he cites too much from Edwin Abbott’s “Flatland” in early chapters and from Karl Heim’s “Christian Faith and Natural Science” in later chapters.The book has nine Appendixes (one is a list of SF stories and novels about the fourth dimension), “Notes” and “Further Readings” sections, and Addendum about recent publications dealing with parallel universes and cosmic topology. These are also interesting and informative. This is a good book especially for theologians, philosophers, artists, and general readers who like wild imaginations or computer experiments. To the serious reader who wants to know the implications of hyperspace in modern physics, I would like to recommend Michio Kaku’s “Hyperspace.”

⭐This book explored the fourth dimension. The author attempts to tackle the problem with our #D oriented minds that prevents us from visualizing the fourth dimension, which is essential for mathematicians and physicists. He ponders the religious implications of a fourth dimensional consciousness.I really wanted to like this book. I enjoy good non-fiction as long as it isn’t dry. This book was touted as accessible, readable, and interesting. The author tried to make it accessible by writing it as a story instead of a guidebook. I guess it somehow just missed the mark for me. I just don’t think this book should have been written in the second person. It definitely took something away from a book that may otherwise have been quite tolerable. At some points in the book I felt that the author was just repeating the same information in different words over and over again. It was like he couldn’t find anything new to say, so he chose to drag the book out by going on and on relentlessly. It is like an essay by a high-school student that is just trying to fill empty space and fit the page requirements. Also, the story part of it was just plain cheesy.It was hard to stay focused and very uninteresting to me. I would not recommend this book.

⭐Lost Books Of The Bible And Sacred Text. It’s an origin of Species, and Beings Book.

⭐An easy read. Not a big fan of how much he quotes other materials. Not a fan of the X-files references or the cheesy detective FBI agent story. Would be better if it was just distilled down to half the size. I do have to say that you will understand higher dimensions much better after reading this (If you already are not proficient in higher dimensions already).

⭐Some of the content of this book went over my head. Yes, one or two important points are repeated but I didn’t mind.

⭐Hilarious & educational. Fascinating read, really makes you stretch your brain, into the 4th dimension!!!!! The Mulder/Scully dialogue really helped make this content accessible. Love the take me by the hand walkthrough higher dimensions 🙂

⭐The book wandered through some high level moments and then some relatively silly so-called science fiction escapades riffing off Scully and Mulder.

⭐Clifford A. Pickover makes interesting topics even more interesting. This is not the first book I have read by Clifford A. Pickover and it will not be the last.

⭐This book is a wonderful tool for helping to visualise the concept of a fourth dimension, but unfortunately the main theme is often lost in an embarrassing display of gender stereotyping (I’m sure he intends it to be tongue in cheek, but it’s unnecessary and verging on offensive). Also, the stories are made difficult to get into by the author assuming that the reader (who he addresses in the second person) is male. My final gripe is that the Kindle edition is riddled with typos. All that aside, worth a read if you want to get a grasp on higher dimensions.

⭐The entire book goes around the same message that creatures in a 4D world can move in an extra direction we can’t perceive. That’s a small part of hyperspace but not the entire deal of it.

⭐This is an entertaining book to read, that that presents examples in a light format. Overall it’s easy to follow and explains a mind twisting topic rather well.

⭐Interesting

⭐great book!

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