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Loading... Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensionsby Edwin A. Abbott
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Six out of ten.Flatland is a two-dimensional world with a strict hierarchy of shapes and rules. The first half of the book is 'A Square' explaining in detail how the world of Flatland works. However, in the second half of the book his understanding of the world is ripped apart by trips to Lineland, Pointland and a possible world of three-dimension.Amazingly innovative. The book is meant as a parody of Victorian society that believed it had reached the edge of all human knowledge. (  ) theboylatham | Jan 25, 2010 |  Flatland is a delightful book, the only that I know of that is narrarated by a two dimensional square. It provides a lesson in geometry and understanding dimensions. But it also operates, subtly, on another level, providing perhaps a tongue in cheek commentary on the British class system and social/sexual relations. It's politically incorrect at times, if taken seriously and not as a satire, but it's a lot of fun. (  ) OccassionalRead | Jan 21, 2010 | Listening to this book on the CraftLit podcast.  kathisharp | Dec 30, 2009 | This slim book is a book of geometry made simple, in a sort of Sophie’s World style, but it’s a lot more than that. While the story is about an inhabitant of a 2 dimensional universe (A Square is what he goes by) who is shown how a one dimensional and a non-dimensional world would work, and then shown the 3 dimensional world of solids, it’s also a social satire. Written during the Victorian era, he mocks the class system & government through is description of 2-D Flatland. The author has been called a misogynist, but I’m not sure if he really was, or if he was satirizing the view, commonly held in his day, of women as emotional, brainless idiots. Given that he also describes military men as stupid and violent, and has the Square hold the upper classes (the more oblique your angles, the higher your class- circles are the top caste) in unwonted awe, I’m going to guess that the misogyny was part of the satire. The actual purpose of the book seems to be to get people’s heads around the idea of a 4th dimension. I’m not sure he accomplished that, but it was a good read and not dated by being over a hundred years old. ( ) dark_phoenix54 | Nov 20, 2009 | Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is a great little book by Edwin Abbott. Flatland is a mathematical adventure on geometry. It takes place on a two-dimensional world with a strict hierarchical society based on the shape of its individuals and it describes the consequences of the adventure of one of those individuals (a square) through the realms of three-dimensions. It's a great book that makes us think about more-than-three-dimensional spaces and objects through analogy with two- and one- and even zero-dimensional worlds. As I read this, I thought it would be interesting to see an animation version of this book, but it turns out there are already some movies on Flatland. There is even a recent one with Martin Sheen (voice). (  ) jorgecardoso | Oct 31, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 048627263X, Paperback)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.(retrieved from Amazon Tue, 05 Jan 2010 12:11:04 -0500) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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