In Search of the Miraculous

and the cosmos below. This last point is perhaps the most paradoxical, but

nevertheless it is exactly as it should be. For a three-dimensional body, such as is a

cosmos, the fourth dimension lies as much in the realm of very large magnitudes as in

the realm of very small magnitudes; as much in the realm of what is actually infinity

as in the realm of what is actually zero.

"Further we must understand that the three-dimensionality of even one and the same

body can be different. Only a six-dimensional body can be completely real. A fivedimensional body is only an incomplete view of a six-dimensional body, a fourdimensional body is an incomplete view of a five-dimensional body, a threedimensional body is an incomplete view of a four-dimensional body. And of course, a plane is an incomplete view of a three-dimensional body, that is to say, a view of one

side of it. In the same way a line is an incomplete view of a plane and a point is an

incomplete view of a line.

"Moreover, though we do not know how, a six-dimensional body can see itself as

three-dimensional. Somebody looking at it from outside may possibly also see it as a

three-dimensional body, but in a completely different kind of three-dimensionality.

For instance, we represent the earth to ourselves as three-dimensional. This threedimensionality is only imaginary. As a three-dimensional body the earth is something quite different for itself from what it is for us. Our view of it is incomplete, we see it as a section of a section of a section of its complete being. The 'earthly globe' is an

imaginary body. It is the section of a section of a section of the six-dimensional earth.

But this six-dimensional earth can also be three-dimensional for itself, only we do not

know and we can have no conception of the form in which the earth sees itself.

"The possibilities of the earth are actualized in the Ayocosmos; this means that in

the Ayocosmos the earth is a six-dimensional body. And actually we can to a certain

extent see in what way the form of the earth must change. In the Deuterocosmos, that

is, in relation to the sun, the earth is no longer a point (taking a point as a scale

reduction of a three-dimensional body), but a line which we trace as the path of the

earth around the sun. If we take the sun in the Macrocosmos, that is, if we visualize

the line of the sun's motion, then the line of the motion of the earth will become a

spiral encircling the line of the sun's motion. If we conceive a lateral motion of this

spiral, then this motion will construct a figure which we cannot imagine because we

do not know the nature of its motion, but which, nevertheless, will be the sixdimensional figure of the earth, which the earth itself can see as a three-dimensional figure. It is necessary to establish and to understand this because otherwise the idea of the three-dimensionality of the cosmoses will become linked with

our idea of three-dimensional bodies. The three-dimensionality even of one and the

same body can be different.

"And this last point seems to me to be connected with what G. calls the 'principle of relativity.' His principle of relativity has nothing in common with the principle of

relativity in mechanics or with Einstein's principle of relativity. It is the same again as in the New Model of the Universe; it is the principle of the relativity of existence."

At this point I ended my survey of the system of cosmoses from the point of view

of the theory of many dimensions.

"There is a great deal of material in what you have just said," said G., "but this material must be elaborated. If you can find out how to elaborate the material that you

have now, you will understand a great deal that has not occurred to you till now. For

example, take note that time is different in different cosmoses. And it can be

calculated exactly, that is, it is possible to establish exactly how time in one cosmos is related to the time of another cosmos.

"I will add only one thing more:

"Time is breath—try to understand this."

He said nothing further.

Later on one of G.'s Moscow pupils added to this that, speaking with them once of

cosmoses and of different time in different cosmoses, G. had said that the sleep and

waking of living beings and plants, that is, twenty-four hours or a day and night, constitute the "breath of organic life."

G.'s lecture on cosmoses and the talk following it greatly aroused my curiosity.

This was a direct transition from the "three-dimensional universe" with which we had begun, to the problems which I had elaborated in the New Model of the Universe, that is, to the problems of space and time and higher dimensions, on which I had been

working for several years.

For over a year G. added nothing to what he had said about cosmoses.

Several of us tried to approach these problems from many different sides and,