Flatland A Romance of Many Dimensions

by Abbott, Edwin A.

• ISBN13: 9780486272634
• ISBN10: 048627263X
• Edition: Unabridged
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1992-09-21
• Publisher: Dover Publications

Summary

Classic of science (and mathematical) fiction charmingly illustrated by author describes the journeys of A. Square and his adventures in Spaceland (three dimensions), Lineland (one dimension) and Pointland (no dimensions). A. Square also entertains thoughts of visiting a land of four dimensions a revolutionary idea for which he is banished from Spaceland.

Author Biography

Fifty Years in the Flatland
2012 will mark the 50th anniversary in print with Dover of one of the most significant and influential books of the past century and a half. The mathematical, satirical, and religious allegory Flatland by a little-known but immensely prolific Victorian English schoolmaster and theologian Edwin Abbott Abbott, was first published anonymously in England in 1884 — Abbott wrote it under the name "A Square." The unique geometrical romance which is Flatland posited a world and its inhabitants that exist in only two dimensions and forces the reader captivated by the originality of this central idea to think deeply about the meaning of such a world. Generations of readers and students swept into the romance and fascination of geometry and other branches of mathematics and philosophy owe their introduction to this world to Flatland, which continues to entertain and stimulate new readers today, still going strong 126 years after the first edition was launched. Abbott revised the text somewhat for a second edition published just a few months after the first. Dover's 1952 edition was the first American reprinting of the amended second English edition and was published with a new Introduction by physicist Banesh Hoffmann.

From the Book:
"I CALL our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space. Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows — only hard and with luminous edges — and you will then have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen. Alas, a few years ago, I should have said 'my universe': but now my mind has been opened to higher views of things."

Table of Contents

Limitations	p. ix
Introduction	p. xv
Preface to the Second and Revised Edition, 1884, by the Editor	p. xix
This World
Of the Nature of Flatland	p. 1
Of the Climate and Houses in Flatland	p. 4
Concerning the Inhabitants of Flatland	p. 7
Concerning the Women	p. 11
Of Our Methods of Recognizing One Another	p. 18
Of Recognition by Sight	p. 24
Concerning Irregular Figures	p. 31
Of the Ancient Practice of Painting	p. 36
Of the Universal Colour Bill	p. 39
Of the Suppression of the Chromatic Sedition	p. 44
Concerning Our Priests	p. 50
Of the Doctrine of Our Priests	p. 53
Other Worlds
How I Had a Vision of Lineland	p. 61
How I Vainly Tried to Explain the Nature of Flatland	p. 67
Concerning a Strange from Spaceland	p. 74
How the Stranger Vainly Endeavoured to Reveal to Me in Words the Mysteries of Spaceland	p. 78
How the Sphere, Having in Vain Tried Words, Resorted to Deeds	p. 89
How I Came to Spaceland, and What I Saw There	p. 92
How, Though the Sphere Shewed Me Other Mysteries of Spaceland, I Still Desired More; and What Came of It	p. 98
How the Sphere Encouraged Me in a Vision	p. 107
How I Tried to Teach the Theory of Three Dimensions to My Grandson, and with What Success	p. 111
How I Then Tried to Diffuse the Theory of Three Dimensions by Other Means, and of the Result	p. 115
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