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"[Science fiction is] anything that turns you and your social context, the social you, inside out."
- Gregory Benford
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| Dimension | ||
| Describes a reality separate from our own. |
Probably the first use of the idea of another dimension, at least in science fiction.
| It is to be regretted that Plattner’s aversion to the idea of post-mortem dissection, may postpone, perhaps for ever, the positive proof that his entire body has had its left and right sides transposed. Upon that fact mainly the credibility of his story hangs. There is no way of taking a man and moving him about in space, as ordinary people understand space, that will result in our changing his sides. Whatever you do, his right is still his right, his left his left. You can do that with a perfectly thin and flat thing of course. If you were to cut a figure out of paper, any figure with a right and left side, you could change its sides simply by lifting it up and turning it over. But with a solid it is different. Mathematical theorists tell us that the only way in which the right and left sides of a solid body can be changed is by taking that body clean out of space as we know it, taking it out of ordinary existence that is, and turning it somewhere outside space. This is a little abstruse, no doubt, but any one with any knowledge of mathematical theory will assure the reader of its truth. To put the thing in technical language, the curious inversion of Plattner's right and left sides is proof that he has moved out of our space into what is called the Fourth Dimension, and that he has returned again to our world. |
| Technovelgy from The Plattner Story,
by H.G. Wells. Published by Book Review in 1896 Additional resources -
|
Needless to say, this became a popular idea, along with ways of getting "there" from "here".
(Ultra-Vibrator from Into Another Dimension)
Algernon Blackwood writes in The Pikestaffe Case (1924):
It amounts, of course, to a new direction; a direction at right angles to all we know, a new direction in oneself, a new direction - in living. But it can, perhaps, be translated into mathematical terms by the intellect. This, however, only a simile at best. Cannot be experienced that way. Actual experience possible only to changed consciousness.
Compare to the idea of a "parallel universe" from Men Like Gods (1923), also by HG Wells.
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'Nemourlon armor of reasonable weight resists penetration by most fragments and any bullet that is not both reasonably heavy and fairly high-velocity.'
'Several thousand of them formed the positioning grid on the rubble pile.'
'Its slack walls tightened, bulged, were crossed by ripples and waves of movement.'
'Norman... had never ridden any motorized device that lacked onboard steering and balance systems.'
You will note that HG Wells also figured out the aspect ratio of the future!
'As though a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped...'
'At the ringside opposite them a table had been removed to make room for a large transparent plastic capsule on wheels.'
'... he realized that the moving thing inside was - of course - a robot.'
