The Corner

How Do You Fit The Empire State Building Into a 1-Inch Cube?

The fact, by the way, that there is a figure equivalent to the cube–i.e. a

sort of super-cube–in any number of dimensions, provides the answer to the

question in my subject line. A 1-inch square (i.e. every one of its sides

is just 1 inch long) has a longest diagonal whose length is the square root

of 2. A 1-inch cube (every edge 1 inch long) has a longest diagonal whose

length is the square root of 3. A 1-inch 4-dimensional hypercube has a

longest diagonal whose length is the square root of 4. And so on. This is

a general rule: A 1-inch n-dimensional super-duper-hypercube has a longest

diagonal whose length is the square root of n. The Empire State Building is

around 15,000 inches high, and that is the square root of 225,000,000. So

if you construct a 1-inch cube-equivalent in a space of 225 million

dimensions, the ESB will fit into it very nicely.

John Derbyshire — Mr. Derbyshire is a former contributing editor of National Review.
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