Abbott, Edwin A: Flatland

[ray gower]

From Amazon

A deft mixture of social satire and science fiction that continues to pose a provocative question about perception and reality.

Square is an inhabitant of an infinite flat plane (hence the title of the book) whose inhabitants, flat shapes, are totally unaware of the existence of a third "upward" dimension completely different from their north-south and east-west ones. Sphere, from our world, views Flatlanders as ignorant, and tries to show Square the delights of higher dimensions, as well as showing him the "squalor" of his lower dimensional "lineland" and "pointland" cousins...

There is a delightful class system which ranks flatlanders according to how many sides they have (circles are regarded as the highest class of clergymen) but all women are straight lines, indicating the somewhat Victorian outlook of the author.

Charming and simple, this book is fun!

There is a sequel to this book- Flatterland, by Professor Ian Stewart and written nearly 100 years later. About as much fun as one can have with mathematics!

 

[Dave]

Have you actually read this, Ray? The review that I have says:

Humour, satire and logic combine in this brilliantly entertaining classic -- a capricous, mathematical fantasy of life in a sunless, shadowless, two-dimensional country. The narrator is A. Square, whose flat, middle-class life is suddenly given an exciting new shape by his encounter with a sphere, who introduces him to the joys and sorrows of the third dimension.

It sounds like a book one should immediately rush out and read!

 

[ray gower]

Both of them! Though a while ago!
As I said. They are fun books!
Natural caution and rose tinted memory precludes me from recommending immediate action. But they are well worth reading!

As an aside Flatland was also made into a cartoon in the Sixties

 

[Dave]

Originally posted by ray gower
As an aside Flatland was also made into a cartoon in the Sixties

Yes, I may have seen that, but that would have been a long time ago too.

 

[rde]

Why visit amazon.com when you can visit http://www.gutenberg.org/index/by-author/ab0.html and read it for free?

I confess, I'm intrigued by the idea of a Flatland cartoon. It'd be a 2d rendition of a 3d perception of a 2d world. I'd love to see it.

 

[ray gower]

The cartoon was not a great production, but it did, as far as I can remember, follow the theme of the book. As well as it could in 20 minutes.

Thanks for the link. I've downloaded it for future memories. Sadly they didn't include Prof Lowe.