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.
Зміст
Contents
Edwin A. Abbott
Preface to the Second and Revised Edition, 1884
PART I: THIS WORLD
Section 1. Of the Nature of Flatland
Section 2. Of the Climate and Houses in Flatland
Section 3. Concerning the Inhabitants of Flatland
Section 4. Concerning the Women
Section 5. Of our Methods of Recognizing one another
Section 6. Of Recognition by Sight
Section 7. Concerning Irregular Figures
Section 8. Of the Ancient Practice of Painting
Section 9. Of the Universal Colour Bill
Section 10. Of the Suppression of the Chromatic Sedition
Section 11. Concerning our Priests
Section 12. Of the Doctrine of our Priests
PART II-OTHER WORLDS
Section 13. How I had a Vision of Lineland
Section 14. How I vainly tried to explain the nature of Flatland
Section 15. Concerning a Stranger from Spaceland
Section 16. How the Stranger vainly endeavoured to reveal to me in words the mysteries of Spaceland
Section 17. How the Sphere, having in vain tried words, resorted to deeds
Section 18. How I came to Spaceland, and what I saw there
Section 19. How, though the Sphere shewed me other mysteries of Spaceland, I still desired more; and what came of it
Section 20. How the Sphere encouraged me in a Vision
Section 21. How I tried to teach the Theory of Three Dimensions to my Grandson, and with what success
Section 22. How I then tried to diffuse the Theory of Three Dimensions by other means, and of the result
Про автора
Edwin A. Abbott was born on December 20, 1838 in Middlesex, England. He was an ordained priest, a theologian, and headmaster of The City of London School until his retirement in 1889. He was the author of twelve books on topics ranging from grammar to religious romance. Flatland, by far his most enduring work, has become a classic that resists categorization-a feat of imagination that remains ahead of its time.
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