Flatland - A Romance of Many Dimensions

Edwin Abbott

Chiron Academic Press

2015

138 páginas

4h 36m

ISBN-10: B00VBC4SZ4

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.

Resenhas (7)

5 (Perfeito)

Upward, not Northward

Would it be amusing for one being to contemplate more than our usual three dimensions reality conjecture? Confined to a limited dimensionality, Abbott invite us to stretch our imagination in a multidimensional romance, when suddenly a visitor from the third dimension manifests itself in the two dimensional world, the Flatland.
If somehow we could behold the fourth dimension and expand our scope of reality, the inferred conjecture when in comparison that we so vainly try to synthesize and always end up with analogies could reveal itself poor, shadowy and not solid at all. Many eyes would indicate incredulity, calling it madness, hell, tricks by enchanters, when it’s just knowledge.
To paint a picture of a lesser dimension it’s quite easy when you live in a higher one, but when you invert the papers, it is by no means a simple matter. We can only speculate a direction in which we cannot look and even granting the facts, each individual explain them in different ways.
Hungry for empirical truths, the facts not yet discovered before us could be beneficial to our understanding. In a not so distant future, the exponencial terminal points conceit should not limit or spread fear in our miserable race. It should bring enlightenment and a greater hunger, a rebel spirit for the objective truth.

Link for the highlights: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1neFdhrTSzMknCQut7LlDxRxcz2YgCWlF/view?usp=sharing