this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2024
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Distance still works! Think about Flatland - they can't hide "behind" anything, but we still couldn't see the people 20 miles away.
That is assuming that our universe is flat in the 4th dimension…
Well, yeah. Once you add another dimension the one below it becomes "flat."
Not necessarily. A surface (e.g. a cylinder) isn't 'flat' in our dimension, but is 2D
Sure, but Flatlanders still can't hide behind anything in their environment. They'd be hidden by the very curvature of space, which is really the same as being too "far away" to be seen.
I'm not particularly bothered; this seems just semantics to me. Depends on if you view 'hiding on the other side of the cylinder' as being too far away to see. I don't think it is, but if you feel differently that's fine.
Well think about it from the Flatlander's perspective! They can't even perceive the cylindrical shape of their space. They wouldn't be able to go behind the cylinder from their perspective, all they could do is go forward far enough that the shape of space hides them.
It's not just semantics imo, cuz it would apply to us as well. If you're ever confronted with a 4th dimensional being then the only way you can hide is to get far enough away. You can't see the curvature of spacetime so that's useless for you.