Book of the Week: Flatland

31 Dec 2012

In some of the States there is an additional Law forbidding Females, under penalty of death, from walking or standing in a public place without moving their backs constantly from right to left so as to indicate their presence to those behind them;

Flatland is available on Gutenberg Press for free since it was first published in 1884. It was written by Edwin A. Abott, a Victorian Englishman. Flatland is an oldie that I have never gotten around to reading. I bought the book when I was an undergrad. I distinctly remember a high school classmate telling me about Flatland. Flatland is written from the perspective of a resident of Flatland. This book explores the concepts of higher dimensions by thinking of a lower dimensions. We live in a three dimension world where things have a height, width and length, but in Flatland, the world is just two dimensions. The first half of the book talks about life in Flatland, how things are perceived, the social structure and the history of Flatland. The second half of the book describes the two-dimensional being’s interaction with a one-dimensional world, Lineland and a three-dimensional world, Spaceland. It is through these interactions that aid the reader in thinking about dimensions and why it is hard to think about higher dimensions. I was more interested about the first part of the book that described life in Flatland. The residents in Flatland are geometric shapes. The more sides ones has, the higher social standing. A square is of higher standing than a triangle. Women are lines with the lowest social standing. One has to keep in mind that this book was published at the end of the 1900s before women were allowed to vote in Britain. I was more intrigued about how women were treated and the difference between social classes in the book than I was the talk about dimensionality. I believe things have gotten better for mobility between the social classes, but we live in a society that has ever increasing stratification of wealth. There are people still alive who were born before women could vote. It wasn’t that long ago and we still have far to go. Flatland is one of those books that people refer to, so it is worth a read. Purchase Flatland on Amazon.com or check it out from your local library.