First, Slade was given two separate, unbroken wooden rings. Could he push one wooden ring past the other, so that they were intertwined without breaking it? If Slade succeeded, Zollner wrote, it would “represent a miracle, that is, a phenomenon which our conceptions heretofore of physical and organic processes would be absolutely incompetent to explain.”
Second, he was given the shell of a sea snail, which twisted either to the right or to the left. Could Slade transform a right-handed shell into a left-handed shell and vice versa?
Third, he was given a closed loop of rope made of dried animal gut. Could he make a knot in the circular rope without cutting it?
Slade was also given variations of these tests. For example, a rope was tied into a right-handed knot and its ends were sealed with wax and impressed with Zollner’s personal seal. Slade was asked to untie the knot, without breaking the wax seal, and retie the rope in a left-handed knot.
Since knots can always be untied in the fourth dimension, this feat should be easy for a fourth-dimensional person. Slade was also asked to remove the contents of a sealed bottle without breaking the bottle.
Could Slade demonstrate this astounding ability?
Today we realize that the manipulation of higher-dimensional space, as claimed by Slade, would require a technology far in advance of anything possible on this planet for the conceivable future. However, what is interesting about this notorious case is that Zollner correctly concluded that Slade’s feats of wizardry could be explained if one could somehow move objects through the fourth dimension.
For example, in three dimensions, separate rings cannot be pushed through each other until they intertwine without breaking them. Similarly, closed, circular pieces of rope cannot be twisted into knots without cutting them. However, in higher dimensions, knots are easily unraveled and rings can be intertwined. This is because there is “more room” in which to move ropes past each other and rings into each other. If the fourth dimension existed, ropes and rings could be lifted off our universe, intertwined, and then returned to our world. In fact, in the fourth dimensions, knots can never remain tied. They can always be unraveled without cutting the rope. This feat is impossible in three dimensions, but trivial in the fourth. The third dimension, as it turns out, is the only dimensions in which knots stay knotted!
Similarly, in three dimensions it is impossible to convert a rigid left-handed object into a right-handed one. Humans are born with hearts on their left side, and no surgeon, no matter how skilled, can reverse human internal organs. This is possible (as first pointed out by mathematician August Mobius in 1827) only if we lift the body out of our universe, rotate it in the fourth dimension, and then reinsert it back into our universe.
Zollner sparked a storm of controversy when, publishing in both the Quarterly Journal of Science and Transcendental Physics, he claimed that Slade amazed his audiences with these “miraculous” feats during séances in the presence of distinguished scientists.
Zollner’s spirited defense of Slade’s feats was sensationalized throughout London society. Supporting Zollner’s claims was his circle of reputable scientists, including Weber and Crookes. These were not average scientists, but masters of the art of science and seasoned observers of experiment. They had spent a lifetime working with natural phenomena, and now before their eyes, Slade was performing feats that were possible only if spirits lived in the fourth dimension.