Book details of 'Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions'

Title	Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Author(s)	Edwin Abbott Abbott, Kendahl J. Jubb
ISBN	0451522907
Language	English
Published	June 1984
Publisher	Signet

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The Virtual Bookcase Reviews of 'Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions':

Reviewer amazon.com wrote:
Flatland is one of the very few novels about math and philosophy that can appeal to almost any layperson. Published in 1880, this short fantasy takes us to a completely flat world of two physical dimensions where all the inhabitants are geometric shapes, and who think the planar world of length and width that they know is all there is. But one inhabitant discovers the existence of a third physical dimension, enabling him to finally grasp the concept of a fourth dimension. Watching our Flatland narrator, we begin to get an idea of the limitations of our own assumptions about reality, and we start to learn how to think about the confusing problem of higher dimensions. The book is also quite a funny satire on society and class distinctions of Victorian England. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
Abbott's classic of a two-dimensional world is, of course, meant more as a social satire than a scientific treatise. The Signet Classics edition has an introduction by A. K. Dewdney (successor, with "Mathemagical Themas", to Martin Gardner's "Mathematical Circus" column in the "Scientific American"). For some reason, Dewdney laments the lack of a defined two-dimensional physics in Flatland, preferring a variety of more recent works. In fact, Abbott goes to considerable trouble to provide a fairly consistent and cogent set of physical laws and explanations, particularly given the satirical nature of the book. Where Dewdney says that Abbott does not give details about locomotion in the plane, Abbott's remarks about friction are more consistent than Dewdney's preferred story regarding some kind of legs. Abbott's comments about the source of light are, as Dewdney points out, not consistent with a wholly two-dimensional universe, but that is exactly Abbott's point. The book deals with the interaction of the universes of two- and three-dimensions (and, in fact, zero- and one-dimensions), and the lack of comprehension between them. In addition, Abbott's working through of the progressions from zero to one, two, three, and finally four dimensions are an excellent primer for the exercises in regard to thinking of the extra-dimensionality of our universe. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997
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