Customer Reviews

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Dover Thrift)

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I urge you to read this insightful book. It's short and is very easy to read yet will give you a tangible way of contemplating further dimensions by reference to a society with only two (hence the title 'Flatland'). This [Dover Thrift Edition] could well be the best ever spend on a present for your head! The only negative for me is the book's portrayal of Women as straight lines with pointy ends(!), but you have to take into account that it was written by a Victorian Cleric and this part of the story presents an interesting aside in terms of a view of Victorian Society. Please don't get hung up on this point though - in every other way it is incredibly contemporary, accessible and stimulating to the mind. It is referenced by many leading popular science books and is superior to most (incredible considering its vintage). It certainly represents an essential addition to your bookshelf! I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

Some science books make stuff seem complicated. Even more compliacted than it needs to be. This book, does not. This is an excellent example of a book being able to open your mind to wider possiblities by explaining stuff you already know about insticivly but have never put into words yourself. Although this book is not for the expert, it is ideal for someone just getting going or needing the chance to recap the basics.

It had me thinking for weeks.

That better understanding comes from simplicity is well known. But this axiom is taken to new heights here!

On the one level this is a cool and very amusing exposee of dimensionality. But on another far more fascinating level, it is a brilliant critique of humanity - of society and its norms and rules. How ridiculous our behaviour must look to beings eyeing us from a 4th dimension!

This book is not just intelligent, it is also funny!

Flatland is THE must-read for anyone interested in getting a feel for higher dimensions. The book is extraordinarily readable and succeeds even with people that are afraid of mathematics. Abbott's charm lies in his ability to write simply and clearly about a topic that has its share of very unreachable, esoteric books. You fall into the story (whose plot is by no means secondary to the mathematical ideas), and before you know it you find yourself in contemplation of things like the fourth and fifth dimensions. The visual image that this book provides is a necessary step to envisioning and then understanding the idea of higher dimensions, even for those already versed in the mathematics of it. You never know, after you read this, you might even be willing to try your hand at things like Einstein's relativity. A little on the social aspects of the book: keep in mind that it was written in the very late 1800's. Hidden within the philosophical and mathematical ideas is a satire of the social climate of the times: how women, the military, the upper echelons of society, and just about everyone else were viewed. Flatland makes you think, and think deeply, on many different and sometimes unexpected levels.

This is a compact, insightful and thought-provoking gem which can be appreciated from scientific, mathematical, historical and cultural standpoints. With string theory popularising the concept of higher dimensions today, it's an ideal starting point for those wanting to be able to consider some of the big questions that science is asking. Furthermore, this edition is everything you could want from an ebook. It's formatted perfectly, doesn't forgo the illustrations which are important in a book like this, and is at a fantastic price.

This is a book that took complex ideas and presented them well at a time when the science was not widely understood. Written as a satire on the victorian society where the author lived it still chalenges some of our modern prejudices.

Consider also reading Flatterland by Ian Stewart, which brings the ideas into a modern context

I think the hundreds of reviews preceding this one sum up the book pretty well, so I won't recap it all here. I just wanted to point out that the reviewer who thought that Flatland was a religious allegory, with the Sphere as Jesus has defintely missed the point - Sphere is one of a line (no pun intended) of all too fallible and very much human characters who we meet in the book, illustrating one of its sharpest ironic points (I just can't help myself now).

The first is the Point, utterly convinced, in the teeth of all the evidence, of the non-existence of everything but itself. Then we meet (in a dream) the King of Lineland, who prefers to believe that the Square is a mutant woman, rather than believe in a two-dimensional space (I promise I'm not making this up). Then we have A. Square, our narrator, who has to be forced to accept the reality of three dimensions by being forcibly removed from Flatland.

And, almost at the end of the book, the Sphere, who, until now has seemed to represent enlightened wisdom, shows his own flaws, by reacting angrily and petulantly to the suggestion of fourth, fifth or higher dimensions.

The Sphere is definitely not meant to be divine - he's just as limited in vision as all the other characters. I hardly think that a clergyman would be so unflattering about Jesus.

This is an extraordinary book and once you read it you'll try to count how many points, lives, squares and cubes would a hypercube (tesseract) consist of.

The book is very thin and it can be comfortably read in one day. In order to introduce the reader to 2D world, author starts to describe the society, rules and manners of that world. Between the lines he thus provide a small criticism on our human society vy showing some issues from other point of view. When a sphere comes to preach the word about new dimension to Square, who is the narrator of the story, Square has huge problems of visualizing the third dimension, until he sees it on his own eyes.

A. Square (!), trying to work out what it might be like as a cube, while we of 3 dimensions watch him and ultimately pine with him for even more dimensions. The author is clearly barmy, and a legend. And not only does it leave you in a happily confused state of mind, trying desperately to understand the nature of space, there's also some hilarious satire, and purely inspired explanations for how the whole thing would work. Although the style is sometimes difficult to follow, and it is a bit too short, Flatland is certainly worth a read.

If you've ever tried to imagine a "fourth" (or even higher) dimension, this little gem is for you.

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. Also interesting is Sphere's hypocritical reluctance to accept a fourth dimension, as Square refused to accept a third.

Charming and simple, this book really makes you think about the nature of space itself (not an easy task!)