Flatland: A Romance Of Many Dimensions

Description

FLATLAND: A ROMANCE OF MANY DIMENSIONS is one of the great classic science fiction novels which continues to be as popular today as it ever was. As a satire, Flatland offered pointed observations on the social hierarchy of Victorian culture. However, the novel's more enduring contribution is its examination of dimensions; in a foreword to one of the many publications of the novel, noted science writer Isaac Asimov described Flatland as "The best introduction one can find into the manner of perceiving dimensions." As such, the novel is still popular amongst mathematics, physics and computer science students, as well as the average intelligent and thinking book reader. Several films have been made from the story, including a feature film in 2007 called simply Flatland. Other efforts have been short or experimental films, including one narrated by Dudley Moore and a short film with Martin Sheen titled Flatland: The Movie. And they are all based on this wonderfully imaginative book.

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Customer Reviews

First Half Fairly Boring, Second Half Pretty Decent
I decided to read this book because a.) I have an interest in science/math b.) a friend recommended it.

Overall, I was a bit disappointed. Abbot starts off explaining what Flatland is: a purely 2D environment inhabited by various kinds of regular polygons (and circles). Shortly after, Abbot discusses flatland politics and this is where the book loses interest. While some of this discussion is indeed necessary for understanding what happens at the end, some of it is downright frivolous and unnecessary. I have absolutely no idea why, for instance, he discussed the "color revolution" at all.

About halfway through, Abbott finally discusses the more interesting aspect of the book: what happens when a 2-D object enters a 1-D world? Or when a 3-D object enters a 2-D world? Or what both "thought experiments" imply for an (n+1)-D object entering an n-D object, where n is an arbitrary non-negative integer. Of course, the book was written before time was ultimately considered to be the 4th dimension, so the reader needs to keep this in mind when Abbott treats the 4th dimension as spatial.

My advice to anyone considering this book is to read the beginning 10 pages or so, skip to the 2nd part of the story if it gets too boring, then finish it from there. It's a shame that the beginning has to undermine an otherwise interesting and thoughtful story.

2009-10-24 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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a book with different dimensions to it
This book is about Square, a mathematician who lives in two-dimensional Flatland. He is a very lawful citizen, and goes out of his way to explain to his grandchildren that there is no third dimension, even theoretically. But when he is visited by a sphere from Spaceland, he finds it hard to deny the reality of a third dimension. He is given further reason to consider this possibility when he is granted the rare chance to visit Lineland. He is baffled when the king and queen of that country refuse to acknowledge his existance, because they cannot, in their sphere of experience, imagine that there could be any dimension higher than the first. He is finally convinced when the Sphere allows him to visit Spaceland, where he is able to experience first-hand the third dimension - something he never thought was possible when he lived in Flatland. He then tries his best to convince the rest of the two-dimensional shapes that there's a third dimension, even though they can't see or imagine it. "

I love this book ever since school days. A classic of science (and mathematical) fiction!

2009-01-11 | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 5

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Delightful Fun!
Flatland is an account of the adventures of A Square in Lineland and Spaceland. In it Abbott tries to popularize the notion of multidimensional geometry but the book is also a clever satire on the social, moral, and religious values of the period. A romping good read!

2005-10-25 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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intelligent
This book will give you a whole new perspective on religion, society, and life in general.

2004-11-14 | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

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Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Description

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Flatland

Description

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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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.

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Customer Reviews

multi-dimensional
The scripture and intelligence conveyed in this story is interesting; however,
I found it to be rather sexist towards women. Nevertheless, the book uses extreme examples of analogy to solidify concepts. I really enjoyed it!

2010-07-11 (San Diego, CA USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Literature of many dimensions
Very nice and cost effective edition. As for the text itself it's... inspiring. I'll would recommend it to all that like to think deeper sometimes.

2010-06-13 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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More than Geometry
This book by analogy helps to explain the existence of other dimensions and can therefor can be used to explain many theological principles that seem contradictory in three dimensions.

2010-05-29 (Baltimore, MD) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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May have been groundbreaking in its time, but not now
Maybe it's because I'd read so much about this book (by Gardner, Dewdney, etc.) that I was expecting more of this than I got.

At the time it was written, mathematics and science were somewhat moribund, western society was complacent and original thinkers were treated with (at best) condescension and/or (at worst) persecution.

Into this realm plopped Abbott's "Flatland", simultaneously attempting to be a social satire and a mathematical thesis, but somehow falling short of both. No arguing it's entertaining, if a little clothy, but ultimately it is (by the standards of modern literature and mathematics) woefully shallow.

It's worth reading (in any edition), and it's thin enough to fit in a small gap, so won't impose badly on your bulging bookshelves, but I wouldn't hunt it out especially.

2010-05-19 (Reading, UK) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Flatland-the edition with blue squares on the cover
This edition of Flatland has all of the diagrams made with the keystrokes of a typewriter, not with continuous lines. So the squares, triangles , circles , etc, are illegible. Since the many diagrams are an indispensible part of the book, this edition is completely useless. I bought four copies of this edition for gifts and had to trash them all. Flatland is a very well written, profound, thought provoking discourse of our inability to comprehend life in more dimentions than the three that we occupy, and it is a shame that this edition, well done in all other aspects, contains this fatal flaw, rendering it junk. Do not buy this edition. There are many other far better editions.

2010-05-02 (Los Angeles) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 1

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How to Write Clearly: Rules and Exercises On English Composition

Description

This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

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Customer Reviews

Useless
printed badly, like a hardcopies glued together - very low value in terms of physical book and information

2008-08-31 | amok (Redmond, WA United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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How to write clearly
I was disappointed on the quality of the print. A few pages were blurred hard to read, some were suchHow to Write Clearly: Rules and Exercises on English Composition light ink was also hard to read.

2008-07-19 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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A Shakespearian Grammar: An Attempt to Illustrate Some of the Differences Between Elizabethan and Modern English. for the Use of Schools

Description

This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

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Primer of Greek Grammar

Description

Introduces Greek grammar. Includes both accidence and syntax.

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Customer Reviews

The binding falls apart.
I cannot complain about the text itself, which is proving extremely useful.

Unfortunately, after using the book for about five days, the binding has completely disintegrated. I am forced to keep the paradigms I've already studied in a binder clip; as soon as I turn a page, it breaks off.

Excellent review text ruined by poor materials quality.

2007-08-13 (University of Virginia, Charlottesville) | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 2

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WHAT'S 'REGULAR'?
This appears to be the Greek grammar we used when I was at school, and I'm talking 50 years ago. In its smart modern paperback binding it looks a bit less forbidding, but there is nothing to suggest that it has been updated or revised in any way.

I should think that anyone studying ancient Greek these days is studying it out of some real desire to know the language and its marvellous literature, not because it is an established part of the curriculum, which it isn't these days. There are, I would suggest, right ways and wrong ways of using this book. My idea of the right way is to do the unavoidable hard labour of learning the basic formations of Greek words, but to get into reading some real Greek as quickly as possible rather than trying to master every last nuance that you will find here. You can get a long way with Latin just by the old pedantic method of swotting up declensions and conjugations, but if you try to approach Greek in the same way you will very likely be dead having read no Greek worth reading before you get fully on top of it from that angle. Firstly, this book is full of verb-formations that you are never likely to see in a month of Sundays. Secondly, the verbs in Greek are all over the place - the number of verbs that could be called completely `regular' in the Latin sense is minimal. Nouns and adjectives are easier in that respect, and a little bit of old-style hard slog will reward the effort over these.

What the beginner in classical Greek needs above all is the right kind of teacher. Having mastered the unavoidable groundwork, the student needs to be shown as soon as possible how Greek actually says things, and that is where the real thrill begins to kick in. As the student begins to develop some confidence, this book will come to be more of a work of reference and less of a `primer'. When the general sense of a passage suggests what some unfamiliar-looking verb-form might mean, the book can be used to confirm or falsify the suggestion. However to do that one needs to have an idea where to look in the first place, and it is a bit of a waste of this short life to try to learn, let alone memorise, anything and everything that one might possibly come across when a bit of familiarity with what Greek authors actually said can implant an instinct for the matter far better. Again, in the chapter on syntax the book knows and deploys the correct syntactical term for every kind of usage, no matter how ordinary the usage and how sesquipedalian the term. Some of the terms are genuinely useful and worth committing to memory, for instance the accusative of duration of time or the genitive of comparison. In other cases the Greek usage is no different from ordinary English usage - `ponou mnemon' translates straightforwardly into English as `mindful of toil' and I shall soon have forgotten that this is some `genitive of reference'; and one thing that could really do with removing is the second example in section 8 on page 170 which purports to illustrate the use of two accusatives and contains only one.

Commendably, there is a chapter on Homeric forms, which are a bit baffling to start with for a student whose first acquaintance is necessarily with Attic, the dialect spoken in Athens. This is somewhere again where good teaching and instruction are needed to give the student confidence. I remember L R Palmer in a lecture saying jokingly that in reading the Iliad once you have read the first 23 books the 24th is comparatively simple. In fact the situation is nowhere near as dire as that - the Homeric epics are built on formulae, and one can get used to those surprisingly quickly, but it's better to learn them directly and under guidance with this book as a reference only. In passing I was delighted to note that even at the time of first compiling this book the original editors were on the right side of `the Homeric question', seeing the Iliad and Odyssey as the product of a folk-tradition and ignoring with disdain the despicable and sentimental English pretence to detect a single divinely inspired author through their own superior literary perception. Also useful to the student here is the identification of the `digamma', a w-sound lost by the time Greek adopted alphabetic writing but essential to the understanding of scansion in Homer.

Most pleasing of all are the last two words of the book. Following a particularly indigestible paragraph on Historic Principal Verbs and Primary Conjunctives, we find the words
THE END

2005-02-03 (Glossop Derbyshire England) | Helpful Votes: 16 | Rating: 4

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