Did you know that in geometry, a tesseract, also called an 8-cell or regular octachoron or cubic prism, is the four-dimensional analog of the cube? According to Wolfram MathWorld, in Madeleine L’Engle’s novel, A Wrinkle in Time, the characters in the story travel through time and space using tesseracts. According to Google, Tesseract is also probably the most accurate open source OCR engine available.

Of course, in the Marvel universe, there is yet another use of a Tesseract – as an Infinity Stone, one of the most powerful artifacts in the universe. It can open rifts in space, which ties in nicely with Madeleine L’Engle’s use of it. While Odin keeps watch over the Tesseract in Asgard, you can create your own replica based on this quick project by Venessa Baez (complete with 3-1/2 minute video). With an acrylic photo cube, a few swipes of paint, some LED garden lights, and waxed paper, you can have a great geeky decor item for your desk or bookshelf.

If you could open a rift in time and space, where would you go? And would you make the “Vwoop, vwoop!” sound effect like a TARDIS?

• Tesseract tutorial by Venessa Baez
• More Marvel crafts on GeekCrafts
• More math crafts on GeekCrafts