Flatland/Sphereland (Everyday Handbook) [Paperback]

Edwin A. Abbott (Author)

Book Description

Series: Everyday Handbook | Publication Date: January 28, 1994

A century-old classic of British letters that charmed and fascinated generations of readers with its witty satire of Victorian society and its unique insights, by analogy, into the fourth dimension.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Unless you're a mathematician, the chances of you reading any novels about geometry are probably slender. But if you read only two in your life, these are the ones. Taken together, they form a couple of accessible and charming explanations of geometry and physics for the curious non-mathematician. Flatland, which is also available under separate cover, was published in 1880 and imagines a two-dimensional world inhabited by sentient geometric shapes who think their planar world is all there is. But one Flatlander, a Square, discovers the existence of a third dimension and the limits of his world's assumptions about reality and comes to understand the confusing problem of higher dimensions. The book is also quite a funny satire on society and class distinctions of Victorian England. The further mathematical fantasy, Sphereland, published 60 years later, revisits the world of Flatland in time to explore the mind-bending theories created by Albert Einstein, whose work so completely altered the scientific understanding of space, time, and matter. Among Einstein's many challenges to common sense were the ideas of curved space, an expanding universe and the fact that light does not travel in a straight line. Without use of the mathematical formulae that bar most non-scientists from an understanding of Einstein's theories, Sphereland gives lay readers ways to start comprehending these confusing but fundamental questions of our reality.

Review

"The best introduction one can find into the manner of perceiving dimensions." -- --Isaac Asimov in the ForewordA

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; 1 edition (January 28, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062732765
• ISBN-13: 978-0062732767
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #78,593 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

108 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent edition of a classic - extended, July 17, 2001

By 

Daryl Anderson (Trumansburg, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Flatland/Sphereland (Everyday Handbook) (Paperback)

If you are not familiar with Edwin Abbott's "Flatland", this is the edition to buy. If you are familiar with it (but presumably do not yet own it), this is still the edition to buy.

You've heard the classic criticism of a story is that it is "two dimensional". Well, Edwin Abbott's tale of an imaginary two-dimensional land adds a whole new twist to that phrase. Flatland, as he describes it, is about as rich as a two-dimensional story can be. And it is marvelously extended by its narrator's encounters with the unknown - the world of 3 dimensions. The challenges that narrator faces as he encounters the incomprehensible, quite closely mirror mine whenever I attempt to think about a 4th (or 5th or 7th) dimension. If you've faced the same struggle, you will be delighted by this book.

If you've ever wondered what a 4th dimension would look like, Flatland provides a lens through which you can imagine that extension of our 3D world. From here you can go on to read Rudy Rucker or Pickover or Hawkins - but this is the place to start your exploration of dimensions beyond experience. Abbot accomplishes this by describing the eye-opening extension of his narrator's 2D world when visited by a 3D apparition, a "sphere". His framing of the foundational issues through the experiences of what you'd expect to be the least interesting character in fiction are really quite engaging. The storyline, however sparse, is as interesting as the mathematics - albeit quite nineteenth-century'ish in tone.

Don't misconstrue Abbott's seemingly misogynist portrayal of women and of his class-stratified society. This element was intended to provide a third layer of sharp, Swiftian satire and critical commentary on the rigid social mores of his era. Abbot succeeds in this (but I, nevertheless, decided not to read it aloud to my 6th grade classes - worrying that they might not be attuned to this subtlety of tone.) Be forewarned.

The neat twist of this edition, the inclusion of Dionys Burger's 1983 "Sphereland", as an upside-down "second book", is quite a nice touch. Although I did not find Burger's stylings quite as engaging as those of Abbott, his extension of the mathematical ideas into non-Euclidian spaces is a nice introduction to that idea for non-mathematicians. Since it was intended as a standalone book, "Sphereland" commences with a detailed review of the "Flatland" story. This can be skipped without loss but is not a substitute for reading the original "Flatland", here, first.

Flatland is a timeless classic; a great book for the mathematician and non-mathematician alike.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars These stories could be the begining of a journey of thought., March 13, 1999

By 

Bob Ellis ([e-mail]) (Cleveland, Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flatland/Sphereland (Everyday Handbook) (Paperback)

I am only 17 and I read both of these books and understood every word of it. Not to say that the things covered in these two books are easy to see or comprehend but the authors did such a beautiful job of making everything easy to understand from life in the 2nd dimention to slightly grasping the 4th dimention through mathmatics and to flipping 3 dimentional objects in the 4th dimention thus reversing them like turning a left shoe into a right shoe. Even if you are not interested in math or science these books let you see the world in another way and will stay with you provoking thought at every turn.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read, December 13, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Flatland/Sphereland (Everyday Handbook) (Paperback)

This book introduced me to the amazingly interesting possibilaty of a fourth dimension, or even an infinite number of dimensions, and the way the material was presented (by a story of A Square and A Hexoagon and there adventures with a sphere) is delightfully entertaining. Since the human mind has such a horrid time visualizing the fourth dimension, taking it down one level by having creatures living in a two dimensional world who try to understand the third dimension is an excellent way to help people grasp the possibility of higher dimensions. I was also very interested in the books discussion about a curved space and an expanding universe. This book is great for any teenager interested in theoretic sciences and geometery and it is a great intellectual read.