Deep Space Wandering Fleet

Chapter 164: Chapter 165 Qiu Space Chapter 164: Chapter 165 Qiu Space To escape, he first needed to figure out just how many dimensions this damn place had, how large it was, and… whether he could actually move in higher dimensions.

If he could only move in three-dimensional space, then the probability of finding an exit was nearly zero.

Zhang Yuan struggled to extend his finger into the fourth dimension.

Miraculously, he succeeded!

With a slight obstacle, his finger penetrated the sealed space suit and emerged into a void from the fourth dimension. It was an odd sensation, as if the entire scene had been torn apart—something impossible without a high-dimensional perspective.

His finger quickly felt an icy, expanding touch, yet it did not disintegrate completely.

“Good,” Zhang Yuan thought, elated, and then retracted his finger.

Secondly, if this space was large, even as large as the Solar System, relying on the little jet thrusters of the space suit, the probability of finding an exit remained zero.

Zhang Yuan rested for a few minutes, gathered his spirits, and carefully observed the distance.

Soon, his head began to overheat due to the reception of a vast amount of information.

This place seemed to be filled with mirrors, reflecting countless images of himself!

He felt as if he were surrounded by mirrors!

When he looked straight ahead, he could actually see the bottoms of his feet—not just once, but seven, eight, nine times… as if countless times over!

This massive amount of information nearly made Zhang Yuan’s head collapse again.

“There’s no traditional sense of space here at all, just myself and this space suit!”

Sweat poured from his forehead as Zhang Yuan tried to remain calm.

He profoundly experienced the kind of pain that high-dimensional life must endure.

“Perhaps it isn’t painful for high-dimensional life forms, it’s just that my low-dimensional perception cannot adapt.”

Zhang Yuan dared not move recklessly, for he had been twisted into a sphere and a careless move might thrust his finger from another dimension right into his own heart.

In such a place, if such an accident occurred, it would be nearly impossible to save him.

The flashlight in his space suit was still on, so he maneuvered it back and forth, adjusting angles bit by bit, exploring time and again.

He first considered the simplest four-dimensional space.

If three-dimensional space were twisted into a four-dimensional Klein bottle, undoubtedly, a beam of light shot from the front could indeed strike one’s own back.

But soon, Zhang Yuan realized it wasn’t so simple…

He simply could not use the trajectory of light to estimate the curvature of the space. Since there was no air in the space, the Tyndall effect couldn’t occur, so he could not see the complete path of light.

Even if he could see the path, due to the limitations of his own perspective, he would most likely assume that the beam was a true straight line.

Only if he jumped into a higher dimension for a global view, would he realize that the path of light was twisted.

Quickly, Zhang Yuan thought of other methods… He could deduce what the heck this damn space was by observing the strange twists and distortions of himself and the space suit. Moreover, the scenes he saw, some bright and some dim, were likely related to the trajectory of photon movement.

Imagining a high-dimensional space was a brain-burning task because it went far beyond Zhang Yuan’s daily experience. This feeling of omniscience and dizziness came in waves every few seconds.

“Is that thumping one my heart?”

“That… is my stomach?”

“That… what is that? It couldn’t be the apple I ate today, could it?”

For some reason, all the original structures still functioned, meaning the high-dimensional world was, in fact, compatible with the low-dimensional world.

The human body’s organs are incredibly complex, a profusion of irregular shapes that made Zhang Yuan’s eyes swim and even induced an urge to vomit.

He quickly shifted his attention to his space suit.

He was much more familiar with the space suit than with his own body and soon identified some structurally regular components.

Cubes, as well as various gears!

With mathematics, it was possible to determine the specific dimensions of space.

In a three-dimensional space, there are exactly five regular polyhedra: the tetrahedron, hexahedron, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron—there could not be any more.

In a four-dimensional space, six regular polyhedra could be constructed, one more than in three dimensions known as the “tesseract,” a 4D shape bounded by eight cubic cells, akin to how a square is surrounded by six square faces.

In a five-dimensional world, only three regular polyhedra could be assembled…

In each different dimension, solid geometry would exhibit different properties.

After an observation and calculation that lasted for a full hour, he reached a final conclusion.

It was not four-dimensional space.

It was… nine-dimensional space?!

Zhang Yuan wondered if he had made a miscalculation; he felt like he was about to suffocate as he arrived at this conclusion.

From a certain perspective, all matter was still three-dimensional, with the other six dimensions being extremely small, barely observable. It was these additional six dimensions that had twisted him into his present form.

To give an imprecise analogy, he was like a two-dimensional life form embedded in a sheet of paper. The paper appears to be a flat plane, but is in fact three-dimensional, just with a very small thickness.

To extend a sheet of paper into nine dimensions, to extend two-dimensional space into three-dimensional space—that was his current situation…

The perspective of nine dimensions was so novel that it was no wonder that the influx of information seemed as vast as a flood.

“Why is it like this? Is this world inherently nine-dimensional? And with time, would that make it ten-dimensional?”

A ten-dimensional space brought to mind some conjectures from physics.

When he shifted his body again, it was as if the whole ball had bounced once; he pondered with a thought in mind, “There seems to be gravity here… but I’m in a void, not falling in the direction of gravity… What force is holding me in place?”

“It’s utterly bizarre.”

At this moment, his intense curiosity had overshadowed the initial panic.

In any case, regardless of whether he would live or die, he had to continue exploring…

Even knowing it was a nine-dimensional space was clearly not enough; he still couldn’t escape this place and needed to understand what this strange space was all about—where exactly was that damnable curvature point!

This was exceedingly difficult; even light’s path had been distorted, and Zhang Yuan couldn’t possibly receive any hints.

“Wait, why have I been twisted into a ball? Could it have something to do with the properties of the space itself?”

Zhang Yuan frowned, letting his mind race.

Gradually, a famous space surfaced in his mind.

Calabi-Yau space?!

This space, smaller than a proton, hypothesized to have a complicated and unclear connection with String Theory.

In this space, there are no straight lines; everything is constantly curving. You might be able to reach your own back or the soles of your feet just by stretching out your hand.

Thus, the photons Zhang Yuan saw had already been tumbling through the additional six dimensions numerous times, taking many roller coaster rides, before finally concluding their travels on his back, which explained the situation he now observed.