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Theoreticaly, there exist immersions of the real projective space $\mathbb{R}P_3$ in $\mathbb{R^4}$.

If an equation for one is given, eg $f:\mathbb{R}P_3 \rightarrow \mathbb{R^4}$ you can visualize it as the cross-sections of a hyperplane moving along the orthogonal dimension.

You set the coordinates as $(x,y,z,t)$, where $t$ is time, and imagine the set of $(x,y,z)$ such that $(x,y,z,t)$ is in the image of $f$ at the given $t$.

By applying this procedure for the embedding of the real projective plane $\mathbb{R}P_2$ (as was asked here), I've sketched the following example:

enter image description here

For projective space, I'm having trouble getting either a visualization or an equation (for an immersion). I know if I could "glue" a $3$-ball to the real projective plane then it would give $\mathbb{R}P_3$ . That would mean starting with a point that grows into a sphere instead of loop, but I can't apply the "twisting" without getting cone-like singularities. So that's not a good strategy. I know there's other ways to obtain $\mathbb{R}P_3$, for example gluing two solid tori, but it's hard translating the correct "gluing" to immersion.

Please provide an explicit function for immersion of $\mathbb{R}P_3$ in $\mathbb{R^4}$, or guidance on how to correctly pick the cross-sections in $\mathbb{R}^3$ along time .

user3257842
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  • See if http://www.groupoids.org.uk/outofline/motion.html#motion helps to see what is going on, though it does not give a formula. – Ronnie Brown Sep 11 '17 at 10:08
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    That's interesting, but it's only the projective plane $\mathbb{R}P_2$. I've got that done. I'm looking for an immersion of $\mathbb{R}P_3$ in $R^4$. That's probably gonna be more complicated. – user3257842 Sep 12 '17 at 18:46

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