Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott

4/5

This book is about a square that lives in a two dimensional world known as Flatland. The first part of the book describes Flatland and its inhabitants. It talks about the different shapes that live there (lines, isosceles triangles, equilateral triangles, squares, polygons of all number of sizes, and circles) and their social rules. Flatland has a very strict caste system based on what shape someone is. The more sides one has, the higher one's caste is. Abbott goes into great detail along this tangent and it is absolutely fascinating to read about it. He also talks about the challenges of recognizing someone in a two dimensional world. Inhabitants must be careful when navigating the social rules that go along with recognizing shapes. The other part of the book is about the square's adventures into other lands. He goes to a one dimensional world to meet with the monarch who happens to be a line. He tries to convince this king that the square's land has an additional dimension, it's a plane rather than a line. The king doesn't believe him. Later, the square is visited by a cube who tries to convince him of a third dimension. The square refuses to believe it until the cube takes him with. They talk about the fourth dimension and even visit the zero dimension. (The zero dimension is a single being that makes up the entire universe.) This is a fascinating book that really forces the reader to thing. The reader needs at least a basic understanding of geometry in order to follow along.