The fourth dimension

THE EVIDENCES FOR A FOURTH DIMENSION 83

Let us now enquire what a vortex would be in a fourdimensional fluid.

We must replace the line axis by a plane axis. We should have therefore a portion of fluid rotating round a plane.

We have seen that the contour of this plane corresponds with the ends of the axis line. Hence such a fourdimensional vortex must have its rim on a boundary of the fluid. There would be a region of vorticity with a contour. If such a rotation were started at one part of a circular boundary, its edges would run round the boundary in both directions till the whole interior region was filled with the vortex sheet.

A vortex in a three-dimensional liquid may consist of a number of vortex filaments lying together producing a tube, or rod of vorticity.

In the same way we can haye in four dimensions a number of vortex sheets alongside each other, each of which can be thought of as a bowl-shaped portion of a spherical shell turning inside out. The rotation takes place at any point not in the space occupied by the shell, but from that space to the fourth dimension and round back again.

Is there anything analogous to this within the range of our observation ?

An electrie current answers this description in, every respect. Electricity does not flow through a wire. Its effect travels both ways from the starting point along the wire. The spark which shows its passing midway in its circuit is later than that which occurs at points near its starting point on either side of it.

Moreover, it is known that the action of the current is not in the wire. Jt is in the region enclosed by the wire, this is the field of force, the locus of the exhibition of the effects of the current.

And the necessity of a conducting circuit for a current is