Garrett Lisi Explores Second Life's Crooked Tesseract House-- And So Can You, Here's How

Last week while theoretician Garrett Lisi was in SL visiting the recreation of the E8 model that best explains his unified field theory, I casually mentioned to him that someone had also built a four dimensional tesseract house with no front or back.  Curiousity piqued, he asked for a landmark, and away we went.  Here he is in the white robe and sneakers, exploring the place with Seifert Surface, the mathematician who built it.

I wrote about The Crooked House (named after the classic Robert Heinlein short story that inspired it) in 2006, but it's been moved from its original location.  To get there, you must first teleport to a floating platform in a region aptly named XYZ. 

Here's the direct SLURL teleport link to the Crooked House entry point.

Once there, be careful not to move until everything around you has resolved, or you're liable to step off the platform and fall hundreds of meters.  Instead, be sure to read the Crooked House instructions located there, and when you're ready, click the oblong granite sculpture nearby.  That will transport you to the Crooked House itself.

The House will seem to you like a bland Victorian affair, but it hides mathematical mysteries.  To unlock them, you need to click the granite key sitting on the marble table.  If you come with a friend, ask them to sit down.  Otherwise-- and I don't exaggerate-- they'll get flung out into the stratosphere.  Now you're finally ready to explore the Crooked House.

After you've done that, and your brain has sufficiently melted, read about how Seifert Surface created the Crooked House in my original post. 

Of course, exploring the House did not melt the brain of Garrett Lisi, who quickly grasped its secrets, and then engaged Seifert Surface in an extended conversation of high math concepts that left me utterly confused.  In Instant Message, I asked Seifert what it felt like, showing off his creation to a man many people consider the next Einstein who'd discovered the long-fabled Grand Unification Theory.  Ever the mathmetician, Mr. Surface sort of shrugged, and noted that the jury was still out on that on.

Comments

[Patchouli Woollahra]

And once again, you introduce another generation of SL Residents to the WTF (Wonderful Tangential mindFark) that is the crooked house.

As a previous repeat visitor, I have to say that this is one of those places that keeps you thinking for far too long after the teleport out. I personally recommend it as a demonstration of what Second Life enables, taken to an extreme.

\your friends do want to sit down when you fire up the house, yes.

[Doubledown Tandino]

yep yep... the ooool crooked house. crazy fun times. I've probably visited about 20 times over the past two years.