June 27, 2001
Flatland
While randomly searching for a new decent sci-fi book at the library, I came across Flatland. It wasn't new, or pretty. The softcover book was torn in a few places and looked generally boring from the outside. This could not have been farther from the truth. This fantastic novel brings us through the Gulliver-esque travels of a Mr. A Square who leads us on a trip through his 2 dimensional society.
"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 fina lly grasp the concept of a fourth dimension. Watching our Flatlandnarrator, 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."