Edwin A. Abbott’s hallucinatory tale has captivated readers for more than a hundred years—including contemporary scientists such as Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking. In this mind-expanding satire, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions describes a two-dimensional world organized by strict caste system of geometrical forms. The narrator, A. Square, introduces us to Flatland before describing his revelatory explorations of Lineland, a one-dimensional world, and Pointland, a world of no dimensions, and the hitherto inconceivable three-dimensional world of Spaceland, through which he is ushered by his Virgil-like guide, Sphere. In Flatland, Square is regarded as a heretic and imprisoned for his belief in the existence of a third, and possibly even a fourth, dimension.
Although it did not achieve popular success on its publication in 1884, Flatland gained a broad audience after the publication of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which focused attention on the concept of a fourth dimension. The book enjoyed another renaissance with the advent of modern science fiction in the late 1930s and is now widely acknowledged as a pioneering work of mathematical fiction.
Includes the author’s original illustrations and a short biography.
สารบัญ
Edwin A. Abbott biography
Preface to the Second and Revised Edition, 1884 ix
PART I: THIS WORLD
Section 1. Of the Nature of Flatland 1
Section 2. Of the Climate and Houses in Flatland 4
Section 3. Concerning the Inhabitants of Flatland 7
Section 4. Concerning the Women 11
Section 5. Of our Methods of Recognizing one another 17
Section 6. Of Recognition by Sight 22
Section 7. Concerning Irregular Figures 28
Section 8. Of the Ancient Practice of Painting 32
Section 9. Of the Universal Colour Bill 35
Section 10. Of the Suppression of the Chromatic Sedition 40
Section 11. Concerning our Priests 45
Section 12. Of the Doctrine of our Priests 48
PART II—OTHER WORLDS
Section 13. How I had a Vision of Lineland 53
Section 14. How I vainly tried to explain the nature of Flatland 59
Section 15. Concerning a Stranger from Spaceland 65
Section 16. How the Stranger vainly endeavoured to reveal to me in words the mysteries of Spaceland 69
Section 17. How the Sphere, having in vain tried words,
resorted to deeds 78
Section 18. How I came to Spaceland, and what I saw there 81
Section 19. How, though the Sphere shewed me other mysteries of Spaceland, I still desired more; and what came of it 87
Section 20. How the Sphere encouraged me in a Vision 95
Section 21. How I tried to teach the Theory of Three
Dimensions to my Grandson, and with what success 99
Section 22. How I then tried to diffuse the Theory of Three Dimensions by other means, and of the result 102
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