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| | Amazon.com |
| Unless you're a mathematician, the chances of you reading any novels about geometry are probably slender. But if you read only two in your life, these are the ones. Taken together, they form a couple of accessible and charming explanations of geometry and physics for the curious non-mathematician. Flatland, which is also available under separate cover, was published in 1880 and imagines a two-dimensional world inhabited by sentient geometric shapes who think their planar world is all there is. But one Flatlander, a Square, discovers the existence of a third dimension and the limits of his world's assumptions about reality and comes to understand the confusing problem of higher dimensions. The book is also quite a funny satire on society and class distinctions of Victorian England. The further mathematical fantasy, Sphereland, published 60 years later, revisits the world of Flatland in time to explore the mind-bending theories created by Albert Einstein, whose work so completely altered the scientific understanding of space, time, and matter. Among Einstein's many challenges to common sense were the ideas of curved space, an expanding universe and the fact that light does not travel in a straight line. Without use of the mathematical formulae that bar most non-scientists from an understanding of Einstein's theories, Sphereland gives lay readers ways to start comprehending these confusing but fundamental questions of our reality. |
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| | REVIEWS FROM AMAZON.COM | | A look into other dimensions |
| This book "flatland" is one of my favorite books of all time. Even though it was written along time ago, it still introduces new theories that most people would not think about everyday. The details on geometry and polygons and the other dimension are well. Also the diagrams included also help a lot. The trips to Lineland, Pointland, and Spaceland portray the stubbornness of people to adapt to new customs that our introduced to them. The questions I have after reading this book is their other dimensions like 5th and 6th. My favorite character in the book is the square because; he is very curious and smart. A thing I liked in this book is that it was written in third person. I would strongly recommend this book because it takes an idea that is rarely used, and makes it understandable to the general public. |
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| Not a math book! |
I just finished the book, and let me say this: just because it is talking about polygons and n dimensions does not make this book a math book! This book is first and foremost a book on philosophy and a social satire, and secondarily a book on religion.
Why?
Well, the long running theme is the socio-economic class system of Flatland, which is not simply unjust, but more accurately elitist, and misogynist. Polygons are just metaphors; well-off people get better off more quickly for every successive generation, and low poor working class people are stuck in a perpetual circle of poverty but always wishful to achieve higher status in the next generation.
The trips to Lineland, Pointland, and Spaceland illustrate the stubbornness of mankind and the irony of that stubbornness. After his dream that Lineland people and Pointland person are too stupid to accept Flatland, Square himself was regarded as too stupid to accept a higher form, i.e. the Spaceland. The Sphere, in turn, refused to accept an even higher form just after he admonished the Square for refusing to accept a higher form to him.
Granted, the details on geometry and polygons and the line on 4th dimension are pretty well-written, but such focuses are brief in this 81 pager, and briefer still when their metaphorical powers are accounted for. Don't just read the words. For a classic like this, one must read between the lines. |
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