How to stop a 4-d thief?

[HicksonX]

Just reading through the various threads, and also after reading 'Flatland' recently, something occured to me:

If a 3-d/4-d being living in a 4-d world decided to play a trick on us, for example, stealing the crown jewels, is there any way to prevent such a thing?
My limited knowledge of such a scenario tells me that we would be powerless to stop this being from robbing us blind, would i be correct in saying that?

[Nick]

Yes, you are right. Unless you destroyed it. It's hard to steal something that you destroyed.

[zero]

Or you might booby-trap it so its destruction serves a purpose by making sure the thief's career comes to a sudden end.

[HicksonX]

But if you planted a bomb in the item that the thief was going to steal, wouldnt he/she see the contents, namely the bomb?

[Mucleus]

Another possibility is to adhese the object to its surroundings, so that it can't be feasibly moved without taking a large chunk of world with it.

[zero]

A booby-trap need not involve a bomb. It could be any number of things; for instance, it may include something poisonous to the thief.Also, just because items can be seen does not mean they will be accurately identified.

[HicksonX]

A booby-trap need not involve a bomb. It could be any number of things; for instance, it may include something poisonous to the thief.Also, just because items can be seen does not mean they will be accurately identified.

Yes i agree, but for simplicity let us assume that this thief is relatively intelligent and knows as much as we do about chemicals/ poisons, etc.
I am racking my brain here trying to figure out if there is a way to stop him/her.

P.S Just in case you are worried, i dont have a 4-d thief tormenting me

[zero]

Knowing that the goods are "poisoned" in some way could be an effective deterrent against taking them. There are no 3-d barriers for a 4-d process of removal, however.

I would wonder why a 4-d thief would be interested in 3-d stuff, since it's relatively insubstantial from a higher-dimensional perspective. What would you do, for instance, with a 2-d item? To fully understand any crime, an idea of what motivates it is vital. Perhaps this would be easier to comprehend if the thief is 3-d (just like us), but through some technological means has a way to utilize a 4-d method of swiping things. Very effective for defeating the usual physical security barriers -- but then a defense against this would simply become a similar technological matter.

[mghtymoop]

if you were to create a truly 2d object, with absolutely no depth, you would be unable to touch or interfere with it is any physical way, thus the crown jewels are safe simply due to the fact that they are too thin to be touched

[papernuke]

About the crowns being booby-trapped with bombs.
you could have motion sensing bombs which explode when they sense any motion within a 3D sphere (or block).
then, no matter what, the theif would not be able to get the crowns (or bombs) becuase to get something out of our dimension,
at least one miniscule part of their body would have to enter our dimension.
but then they could use a 4D stick to push it out...

someone might want to split this:
just thought of this.
if, when we take an object of out the 2D, then wouldn't we create a void in which there is nothing?
referring to the top. if we stole a book out of their dimension, if you pushed it out with your hand or something,
then wouldn't there be an empty space where the book was? because the book is 2D, so it is like a plane in a larger plane. if you took the smalller plane out of the larger plane, you would make a hole in the larger plane. then, wouldn't a 2D being be able to simply fall through the "hole" and come into our dimension?
saying that their dimension was in ours.

also, if we simply stuck our hand into the 2D, then wouldn't we, in a sense, expand their universe? because the gasses where you stuck your hand would have to budge so that you could enter. then, the gasses (or whatever you stuck your hand into) would keep pushing everything. and so on. then wouldn't the 2D expand? even if only by a bit.

wouldn't that work for 4D -- 3D too?

[prime]

I think i agree with 'mghtymoop'..2d objects are too thin to be touched,,,we have a 3-dimensional body structure...For our 3d hands to touch an object it must be of 3 dimensions....and if 2d beings exist...they wont have any matter inside them as matter is 3 dimensional..It may be possible that such beings exist but we cannot see them as light cannot travel from a plane into the 3d space(it can be reflected only from solid surface).The 2d worlds may be hidden somwhere in the 3d space.
Also a 3d space must be hidden inside the 4d space in a similar manner...and which which 4d beings cannot possibly see.

[Tessa]

It depends which direction you're viewing the 2D object. 3D beings see in two dimensions, meaning that something only needs two dimensions to be seen. So a square could be seen face-on, but not from it's 1D sides. If an actual 2D square were to rotate in the third dimension, it would look as if it's shrinking into a line, and then into nothing, and then back into a square, no?

The same goes for a 4D being on a 3D object. This also means that 4D beings view 3D objects way differently than we do. Even if they were to steal our prized possessions, they would have no idea what it was they were stealing. Plus, they would have no use for it. And they really wouldn't get any joy out of the prank, because they wouldn't recognize our facial expressions as we see them.

[wotchadec]

I believe the best way to stop a 4d thief would be to put the crown jewels in liquid nitrogen. This way, if the thief breaks into the 3d realm out of thin air through 4d, he won't be able to steal it without being frozen by the liquid nitrogen. I thought about an extremely hot environment at first, but then I figure the crown jewels would melt

[kingmaz]

Would it be really silly if I said 4d police?

[Keiji]

...oh dear