Customer Reviews

Fourth Dimension (The Occult)

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I was amazed when after purchasing this book from what I thought was a reputable source, Amazon, I received a rather grainy, nearly unreadable PHOTOCOPY of the book in a binding. The book's 5"x 7" pages were photocopied onto 8.5" x 11" paper, without zoom, partially skewed and with many drop outs in the text, then bound and passed off as a "paperback". Beware; you are not getting what's in the picture when you order this item.

Charles Hinton was and remains the great apostle of the fourth dimension.

In that sense, his writings are uniquely critical to a proper historical appreciation of the fourth dimension. However, as an explanation of how to visualize it, I find myself agreeing with Rudy Rucker in his Geometry Relativity and the Fourth Dimension wherein he said that the exercises laid out by Hinton were less than helpful to him personally in visualizing the fourth dimension.

For the best treatment on obtaining this visualization I would recommend Choas Coincidence and All that Math Jazz by Burger and Starbird. Also, the companion book to this The Fourth Dimension Simply Explained has many helpful essays that repeat essentially the same message. Yet another good book is Clifford Pickover's Surfing Through Hyperspace which among other things tells you where to find cool Fourth Dimension toys (including Legos!) and other items to assist in visualizing the fourth dimensional perspective.

Even I attempted to make the fourth dimension comprehensible in my review of the Fourth Dimension Simply Explained.

All that being said, as indicated, Hinton remains key to a proper appreciation of the history of the fourth dimension.

Like any new gadget or idea, perhaps Hinton was ultimately guilty over applying the fourth dimension. And largely, Einstein Minkowski ideas on the fourth dimension now perhaps more properly denominate its study but again Hinton was and remains interesting reading.

This writer was a big influence on thinkers in the early part of the 20th century, most notably P.D. Ouspensky. The arguments made here still have not been answered in any fundamental way and are therefore still as fresh as the day they were written.

I have read this old but still worthy book after reading "Flatland" which is a perfect compliment. One word: KEWL.