[COMPLETE] The Fourth Dimension - Hinton - RuthieG

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » March 7th, 2016, 2:01 pm

Okay, here we go again: section 3 uploaded. He does like long sentences!

Peter

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » March 8th, 2016, 1:38 am

Hello again

. I am pretty busy this week, so it may be a few days before I can get around to listening, but I'll get there in the end.

Ruth

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » April 16th, 2016, 10:33 am

Ruth
I'm editing the next chapter, but it's slow going, as he really doesn't think in straight lines, and I had to make a lot of repeats to try to get the meaning clearer. I must really have been fed up when I was recording *this* sentence: https://librivox.org/uploads/bloopers/4D_py.mp3

Peter

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » May 2nd, 2016, 9:33 am

Section 4 uploaded.

Peter

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » May 9th, 2016, 8:25 am

I'm all behind like the piggy's tail, Peter. I will catch up eventually.

Ruth

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » May 9th, 2016, 8:36 am

There's no hurry; I'm only part-way through recording the next section.

I've been reading a collection of Martin Gardner's essays from the Scientific American. In one of them he quotes a letter from someone who had worked through another of Hinton's books about the fourth dimension, which included plans for a set of coloured blocks to help the user to visualise in four dimensions. The letter writer pleaded with readers not to try this as the visualising sort-of took over his mind, and took an enormous amount of effort to get rid of.

Peter

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » May 9th, 2016, 1:06 pm

Now that I can relate to. I'm not sure I shall ever be able to get my head around the concept of four dimensions anyway, but I doubt using three dimensional objects to visualise the fourth would actually help me.

Keep up the good work! I will be back with you as soon as I can. I have had computer problems and I have much catching up to do in many areas.

Ruth

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » May 12th, 2016, 2:05 pm

Ruth, could you have a look at the text for me and see what sense you can make of one of the sentences, please?

At the bottom of text page 34; PDF page 48

Thus A and B (?prime/ ?one) would be identified.

This seems to be referring back to the illustrations on the previous page, where line segments are labelled A and B; A1 and B1.

His reasoning over the preceding page is fairly opaque, but I think, perhaps, that the sentence should actually read "Thus A1 and B1 would be identified."

{That is ... 1:- there's a suffix missing from the A in that sentence, and 2:- when he wrote these pages, he wrote these letters as A prime and B prime (which is how they were given in the text, but in printing the illustrations, the prime was converted into numerical "1".)}

... but his train of thought is difficult enough to understand that I could record the sentence as it appears in the text: "Thus A and B prime would be identified" or "Thus A and B1 would be identified"

What do you think? I'll accept any reasonable interpretation!

Peter

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » May 13th, 2016, 8:03 am

Peter, I will look at this tomorrow morning, but you really don't want any interpretation of mine today. I couldn't even interpret Janet and John today. Promise I will be better tomorrow.

Ruth

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » May 14th, 2016, 3:18 am

I'm not quite as stupid as I was yesterday, but still pretty dim. It seems likely that A1 and B1 is intended. However, in this edition, it is printed as "Thus A and B would be identified" with no superscript at all. I can't quite read the date on this one, but it appears to be 190x, i.e. earlier than the edition that you are reading. Surely, if it had been corrected from the A and B in this earlier edition, it would have been corrected to A1 and B1 in the 1912 edition if this is what was meant.

Hence, being a bit of a coward, I think I would go ahead and read it exactly as printed: either "Thus A and B prime would be identified" or "Thus A and B1 would be identified" depending on how you had read the figures on the previous page.

I doubt that helps, but it is the best I can suggest, I think.

Ruth

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » May 14th, 2016, 5:25 am

Thanks, Ruth;

I'll read it as A and B1 then, but I'm thinking of putting a note in the summary about the text being complex and confusing at times.

EDIT: I think it's more likely that the illustration has been mislabelled, and that A1 and B1 should be A & B prime. I'll make the appropriate changes.

Peter

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » May 15th, 2016, 12:42 am

I think a note in the summary would be a very good idea. I don't have the kind of brain that can comprehend his ideas at all

.

Ruth

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » June 30th, 2016, 7:04 am

Ruth, I'm sorry about the delay. Both of my computers are in for repair. I should be up and running again next week.

Peter

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » July 21st, 2016, 11:57 pm

I at last have a functioning computer again. I'm editing the next chapter. I've edited the summary to make is a bit clearer how difficult the text is.

Peter

Post by **Availle** » July 27th, 2016, 11:12 pm

Peter,

unfortunately Ruth is having a serious attack of real life right now. I will be keeping an eye on this for the time being as MC. To keep things easy, please keep uploading to Ruth's folder in any case.

I cannot DPL for you, so I will advertise for somebody new. Since this is wordperfect PLing, it may take a while. Just keep reading, somebody will be around eventually.