Step into the Fourth Dimension - Ms Julia Munch
23rd March 2024
In this class, we'll explore the fascinating world of geometry in four dimensions by focusing on regular polytopes, which are like the platonic solids but in four dimensions. To help us understand, we'll firstly look at the platonic solids: these are 3D shapes with regular faces and with the same number of faces meeting at each vertex (for example, a cube). We'll discover why there are six different regular polytopes in four dimensions by examining these familiar 3D examples.
We'll then study sections of polytopes, which are geometric objects of one dimension lower, to gain an insight into the polytopes themselves. Alicia Boole, a Liverpool-based mathematician from the late 19th century, played a significant role in studying 4D polytopes. Despite not having a formal mathematical education, she used her remarkable ability to visualise the fourth dimension and made important contributions, particularly in finding and describing the six polytopes using sections.