Review
Two years ago I bought a copy of Flatland as part of an order from Amazon.com. I had not looked at this 1884 classic of 80 some pages since I was in college but I remembered it as a most stimulating read, and the price of 15 cents! for the Thrift Edition was, well 15 cents. (The Amazon price is now up to a dollar and a half, and you have other, more expensive choices. The Penguin Classic paperback edition, introduced by the much -admired scientist/novelist Alan Lightman, is $8.95 and has grown to some 120 pages. The Annotated Flatland, at $21, is a 229 page hardcover annotated by Ian Stewart, mathematician and Fellow of the Royal Society.)

Flatland was published in 1884, 30 years before Einstein taught us that we live in a four-dimensional world. Modern physicists are trying to persuade us that there are, in fact, many, many more. Multidimensional universes are no longer science fiction or, as it was with Abbot, a mental curiosity. No matter. Three dimensions are what our minds can illustrate, no more. And one, two, and three dimensions are what Flatland is about.

Flatland is the story of the journeys of A. Square, resident of the two-dimensional Flatland, to Pointland, Lineland and Spaceland. It is a story that will test your thinking (without a single mathematical equation) as it opens your mind. Unique and lots of fun.

Ian Stewart thought he “would focus on mathematical concepts” embellishing Abbott’s spare descriptions, but he got “hooked” by the life and times of Abbott and his associates. The result is a superb addition to the spare classic that not only amplifies Abbott’s direct words but gives us a capsule biography of the man and many insights into the intellectual activity of the times.

Read Flatland, whatever the edition, and enjoy.

~ Lee Grodzins, Ph.D., Physicist, Professor Emeritus, MIT