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.
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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.
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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.
... Read more ›Sphereland is entirely the opposite. Sphereland deals with ideas such as the expanding universe theory others. This it explains even clearer then flatland did. But Sphereland's focus was not on the story, but rather on the theories that it tried to convey. This may be a good thing in some people's minds, but I enjoyed the story of flatland and didn't like it pushed aside to explain the theories. I also didn't like the fixing of flatland to make it less backwards (Besides giving equality to women) since flatland to me was backwards.
So If you want to learn complex Ideas simply and with fun, these are the books for you.