First published in 1884, Edwin A. Abbott’s classic novella is many things: a biting social satire on Victorian society, an exhortation to literally think outside the box (or, if you’re a privileged Spacelander, outside the cube), and above all a testament to the universal quest for knowledge and the inherent beauty and purity of mathematical truth.
Flatland tells the story of ‘A SQUARE, ‘ a mathematician living in the Second dimension, known as Flatland, whose perceptions of his Universe are turned upside down when he is visited by a Sphere from the Third dimension, known as Spaceland. ‘A SQUARE’ also muses on life in Lineland and Pointland. 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.