There are a number of differences between four-dimensional space and three-dimensional space. This article will go through those differences and how they may affect 4D life.
Space grows like x^4 instead of x^3
Seeing lights from afar would be more difficult, as the sphere of directions is now 3D.
Diameters of different sized objects tend to be much closer, which is an effect that perfectly cancels out with more efficient packing of objects of the same diameter.
You may think objects of the same size would have more surface area, but if you compensate for the different dimensionality (surface volume ^ 2/3 vs surface area), cubes of the same volume have less surface area in 4D.
1D objects can no longer be tangled
Earphones in pockets and electrical wiring no longer get accidentally tangled, but knots in rope have to rely purely on friction.
Flat surfaces are now 3D instead of 2D
Let’s subdivide this section into several more sections based on the differences between 3D and 2D:
Space grows like x^3 instead of x^2
Cities can expand out more easily, with a smaller diameter relative to building size. Buildings in general also decrease in diameter due to floorspace increasing relative to smaller diameters.
1D objects can cross over each other
It’s possible to connect five places with roads without needing any intersections aside from those places. This also means that maps can require arbitrarily many colors instead of just 4.
Trains are no longer forced to cross over other roads.
Flat surfaces are now 2D instead of 1D
Boundaries between countries would now be 2D rather than 1D, making them much harder to defend.
The space of sideways directions can now be rotated through. This rotation is called twirl, and it actually deserves a major section of its own.
Twirl
Mixing up left and right (and the new sideways directions) is way more common. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t even have specific names for sideways directions.
The convention for writing text would have to be changed. Maybe each line is a spiral spiraling outward?
You can no longer rely on muscle memory to locate things unless you twirl yourself into a consistent orientation beforehand.
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