Flatland
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, though written in 1884, is still considered useful in thinking about multiple dimensions. It is also seen as a satirical depiction of Victorian society and its hierarchies. A square, who is a resident of the two-dimensional Flatland, dreams of the one-dimensional Lineland. He attempts to convince the monarch of Lineland of the possibility of another dimension, but the monarch cannot see outside the line. The square is then visited himself by a Sphere from three-dimensional Spaceland, who must show the square Spaceland before he can conceive it. As more dimensions enter the scene, the story's discussion of fixed thought and the kind of inhuman action which accompanies it intensifies.
Stats for nerds
25recommend
60mentions
53people
2008–2026years
50% recommend50% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I stopped reading newspapers long back (early 2010s). During the Pandemic, I started a newspaper subscription (very common in India, delivered to the home) so I can use it to segregate wet waste properly. I started reading bits and pieces: horrors/misfortunes sell; news is stale, etc. Of late, I decided to look at it from a different angle, bringing back my childhood nostalgia, when I devoured every piece of reading material I could find. Now, I pick the ones I want to read, marking them as a reminder of continuity, a small bridge to a past life. I’m going to continue this slow reading with Newspapers. Wrote an article about my feelings, scheduled to be published on my personal blog in 2026-JAN.
For books, this year has been the year with the fewest books read.[1] I ended up reading the past: John Keats’s Poems, Marcus Aurelius, The Great Gatsby, Odyssey, and Iliad by Homer.
As a habit and a tribute to something I liked in the past, I read Dan Brown’s latest, “The Secret of Secrets.” I also started re-reading some of Sidney Sheldon’s books, but, as of this day, I could no longer summon the enthusiasm to continue beyond Master of the Game and The Sands of Time.
I also re-read the fantastic book, “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions”[2] by Edwin Abbott Abbott.
- Similar situation with Abbott's Flatland fiction from the 1800's. No math/physics background, but a very interesting perspective on different dimensions from a humanistic point of view which helped others conceptualize these higher concepts in ways that at the time many felt impossible.
- Flatland 1884 by Edwin A. Abbott
- Flatland 1884 by Edwin A. Abbott.
- Flatland by Edwin Abbott
- I highly recommend a book called "Spaceland" by Rudy Rucker. It's like a modern take on "Flatland". In it a Silicon Valley hotshot gets visited by a 4th dimensional entity called Momo.
He also wrote a book called "The 4th dimension" which explores the concept historically and in various ways.
