cover image Fourfield: Computers, Art and the 4th Dimension

Fourfield: Computers, Art and the 4th Dimension

Tony Robbin. Little Brown and Company, $35 (199pp) ISBN 978-0-8212-1909-6

Robbin, a painter and sculptor, uses computers in his quest to represent the fourth dimension. Although Einstein's theory of relativity seemed to define the fourth dimension as time, Robbin disagrees, arguing that the fourth dimension is spatial. In this he finds support in the work of Einstein's former teacher Hermann Minkowski, a Russian mathematician who created a four-dimensional goemetry that is used to conceptualize Einstein's special theory of relativity. Robbin's technically demanding text is accompanied by 109 illustrations (36 in color) of his arcane graphic attempts to make the fourth dimension visible. There are paintings in which rods extend from the canvas, simulating 4-D space; pointillist dot-pictures that attempt to render light visible; and crystal-like sculptures whose appearance changes radically as the viewer moves. This remarkable book includes an insert picture of hypercubes (a hypercube is a 4-D cube with 24 square faces) plus 3-D glass for viewing it. (Sept.)