A romance of many dimensions

Editor’s note:This is a guest post from Luciana Takata.

Last week I read for the second time Flatland − a romance of many dimensions (Edwin A. Abbot, 1884). No matter how many times I read this book I guess I’ll never stop finding it interesting.

In Flatland, its inhabitants − triangles, squares, pentagons and other two-dimensional geometrical figures − can only move to right, left, forward, backward or its composed directions. Up or down simply don’t exist. That’s what a square, inhabitant of Flatland, was used to. Its beliefs (and life) completely change when a sphere comes out of (apparently) nowhere and presents to the ignorant square the third dimension and throw it into the unimaginable space of three dimensions.

Mixing mathematical ficction and critique of the authoritarism, individualism and sexism of the victorian society, Edwin A. Abbot used logic and analogy in a really creative way, composing an assuredly worth reading book.

If you are a mathematician or simply like maths, you shouldn’t miss it, Well, if you don’t like this beautiful science of which me and the creators of this blog are lovers, maybe you can start to! It’s an interesting, intelligent and easy-to-understand romance. I recommend it.