[Ads-l] "fourth dimension" is not "time" to the OED? (UNCLASSIFIED)
Mullins, Bill CIV (US)
william.d.mullins18.civ at MAIL.MIL
Mon Jan 5 19:10:58 UTC 2015
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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Also possibly of interest:
H. G. Wells, "THE CHRONIC ARGONAUTS" from _The Science Schools Journal_ (1888) published by the Royal College of Science
"Has it never glimmered upon your consciousness that nothing stood between men and a geometry of four dimensions -- length, breadth, thickness, and duration -- but the inertia of opinion, the impulse from the Levantine philosophers of the bronze age?"
"When we take up this new light of a fourth dimension and reexamine our physical science in its illumination," continued Nebogipfel, after a pause, "we find ourselves no longer limited by hopeless restriction to a certain beat of time -- to our own generation."
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Joel S. Berson
> Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2015 6:59 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: "fourth dimension" is not "time" to the OED?
>
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> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: "fourth dimension" is not "time" to the OED?
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> --------
>
> Why does the OED's definition of "fourth dimension (under "fourth") not
> include "time"? The definition there is merely "a supposed or assumed
> dimension, additional to length, breadth, and thickness (see dimension
> n. 3 note)." And in the note, the only mention of anything beyond L,
> B, and T is "Modern mathematicians have speculated as to the
> possibility of more than three dimensions of space."
>
> Searching for quotations including "fourth dimension", the earliest
> referring to time is perhaps "1885 Nature 26 Mar. 481/1 Since
> this fourth dimension cannot be introduced into space, as commonly
> understood, we require a new kind of space for its existence, which we
> may call time-space." (Well's "The Time Machine" is 1895.)
>
> Joel
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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