Flatland - Book Review

Information about the book
Author: Edwin A. Abbot
Published in: 1884
Genre: fantasy, science 


Summery
Plot
We live in a world in three dimensions, but, have you ever imagined a world with just two dimensions - length and width?
This is the case of Flatland, a world extended only in the X and Y axis, a world where the living beings are geometrical figures, such as lines, squares, pentagons, circles and others, a world completely different from ours, a world where the existence of the three-dimensional world is unknown - until now.

[Spoilers begin here]
Book Summery
A. Square, an inhabitant from Flatland who is now in prison, first tells the reader the characteristics of his world: why there are so many geometric forms, how the hierarchical system is, how do they see each other, etc., to secondly tells us how he ended there. He tells how "ignorant" he was, not believing in the third dimension, and how, during the end of the second millennium of his age, he first had a "vision" of Lineland, the world of one dimension, during a dream, and how he tried to explain to the king of Lineland the second dimension, and how he is unable to do it, calling the king an ignorant. that same day, during the evening, he receives the visit of what he thinks that is a "circle", the most important figure in his world. Then the "circle" tells him that he is a circle composed by infinite circles, or in others words, a sphere. The sphere, as A. Square tried to do with the king of Lineland, tries to explain him the world of three dimension, obtaining the same result as the square. In the end, A. Square calls him "devil", and attacks him, ending "stuck" in the sphere. The sphere ask the square to stop making pressure so he could go, but he doesn't so the sphere goes up and takes the circle to the third dimension. After all this happened, the square realised how ignorant he was, and starts calling the sphere "Master". The sphere reveals that he has chosen him to be his "messiah" of the third dimension. He continues explaining the square all the figures in the third dimension, and once he has finished, the square  ask his master to go to the forth dimension. After this petition, says to the sphere not to say nonsenses by saying that there are dimensions above the third dimension. Then the sphere show the sphere the zero dimension: Pointland, where the only inhabitant is a point which takes up the whole dimension, and tells him that it was the last lesson. He then wakes up in Flatland again, being now the year 2000, and tries to explain the people the third dimension, but he is unable, and because talking about the third dimensions is forbidden, he is imprisoned for lifetime.
[Spoilers end here]


Favourite parts of the book


"Upward, not Northward"
I like this sentence because it practically the key word of the book. This sentence is first said by the sphere to indicate the square where to look to appreciate the third dimension. As he has and eye that can only move up and down sideways, he is unable to first understand this sentence, but when he is taken to the third dimension and then he is returned to Flatland, that the sentence he uses to remember the third dimension and to try to explain the people the third dimension.

"Me, me me me me, me me me me me me"*
This is the main sentence of the king of Pointland, who is unable to think in other thing than himself as he takes up everything there. I like it because it is a very funny scene when the King of Pointland appears and he is most of the time saying that.


*Note: this sentence actually belongs to the film, not the book (yes, Flatland also have a film). The rest of the scene is as described in the book, with exception of this sentence, which it is not said,


Applications to everyday life
I think that the main application I can get from this book is to believe what it's further from my sight. By this I mean that you should believe in what you don't see, such as spirits and ghost and all that kind of stuff, or in the forth dimension. I mean, most people think that the forth dimension is time, but mathematically speaking, the forth dimension must be a spatial dimension. I believe it exists, despite I had never seen a real teseract (a cube from the forth dimension), or any other real object from the forth dimension. Or maybe the forth dimension are the Heaven and the Hell, and the forth dimension is composed by spirits. All you need is to believe.

Conclusion and recommendations
To finish this review, I'd like to say this book is a great book, which one hundred years ago started the revolution of the dimension, making mathematicians, physicists, philosophers, ecclesiastics and more people interested in the fourth dimension, as the forth dimension gave the option to some people to explain things such as where we go when we die and others. I definitely recommend this book to everybody who likes mathematics and physics. It doesn't mind that you don'r understand them as the book doesn't use a very complicated vocabulary. It's a fast, interesting and funny reading, and it gives you the possibility to understand how a two-dimensional world could be.