In 1884, Edwin A. Abbott published a brilliant novel about mathematics and philosophy that charmed and fascinated all of England. As both a witty satire of Victorian society and a means by which to explore the fourth dimension, Flatland remains a tour de force. Now, British mathematician and accomplished science writer Ian Stewart has written a fascinating, modern sequel to Abbott's book. Through larger-than-life characters and an inspired story line, Flatterland explores our present understanding of the shape and origins of the universe, the nature of space, time, and matter, as well as modern geometries and their applications. The journey begins when our heroine, Victoria Line, comes upon her great-great-grandfather A. Square's diary, hidden in the attic. The writings help her to contact the Space Hopper, who becomes her guide and mentor through eleven dimensions. Along the way, we meet Schröger's Cat, The Charming Construction Entity, The Mandelblot (who lives in Fractalia), and Moobius the one-sided cow. In the tradition of Alice in Wonder-land and The Phantom Toll Booth, this magnificent investigation into the nature of reality is destined to become a modern classic.
Amazon.com Review
In 1884, an amiably eccentric clergyman and literary scholar named Edwin Abbott Abbott published an odd philosophical novel called Flatland , in which he explored such things as four-dimensional mathematics and gently satirized some of the orthodoxies of his time. The book went on to be a bestseller in Victorian England, and it has remained in print ever since.
With Flatterland , Ian Stewart, an amiable professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick, updates the science of Flatland , adding literally countless dimensions to Abbott's scheme of things ("Your world has not just four dimensions," one of his characters proclaims, "but five, fifty, a million, or even an infinity of them! And none of them need be time. Space of a hundred and one dimensions is just as real as a space of three dimensions"). Along his fictional path, Stewart touches on Feynman diagrams, superstring theory, time travel, quantum mechanics, and black holes, among many other topics. And, in Abbott's spirit, Stewart pokes fun at our own assumptions, including our quest for a Theory of Everything.
You can't help but be charmed by a book with characters named Superpaws, the Hawk King, the Projective Lion, and the Space Hopper and dotted with doggerel such as "You ain't nothin' but a hadron / nucleifyin' all the time" and "I can't get no / more momentum." And, best of all, you can learn a thing or two about modern mathematics while being roundly entertained. That's no small accomplishment, and one for which Stewart deserves applause. --Gregory McNamee
From Publishers Weekly
Higher mathematics and low comedy intersect acutely in this fuzzy follow-up to Edwin Abbott's 1884 classic, Flatland. Where Abbott's compact fable about a two-dimensional world discomposed by the discovery of a third dimension was a jeu d'esprit that slyly satirized rigid Victorian society, Stewart's sequel is an episodic ramble through the "flatterland" of modern mathematical theory that begins when teenaged Flatlander Vikki Line, great-great-granddaughter of Abbott's narrator, uses her ancestor's "hysterical document" as a passport to the Mathiverse. Accompanied by a Space Hopper guide, she tours landmarks of the post-Einsteinian universe that include fractal geometry, black holes, cosmic strings and quantum theory. Stewart (The Science of Discworld) keeps the tone light with incessant puns (a one-sided cow named "Moobius") and plays on names ("the Hawk King," who presides over a wormhole-ridden realm in the space-time continuum). The many line drawings that illustrate the text are both amusing and instructive. But the terrain Stewart sets out to explore is vast and abstract, and not all of the subjects he covers find a proper social analogue or cultural referent. The result is that lessons Vikki learns on some of the more abstruse principles still have a textbook stuffiness that even the author's Carrollian wit can't leaven. Though perplexing in spots, the tale is ever enchanting, and its user-friendly blend of fiction and nonfiction proves that the comic and cosmic need not be mutually exclusive. (May 1)Forecast: With advertising in Scientific American and the New Yorker and a 50,000-copy first printing, this should be a hit with the literate elite who also appreciate math and science.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-During Victorian times, Edwin A. Abbott wrote the popular mathematical classic Flatland, in which he introduced readers to the concept of four dimensions, as seen through the eyes of two-dimensional A. Square, while cleverly inserting social commentary on class structure and women. In Flatterland, Stewart tells modern readers the story of A. Square's teenage great-great granddaughter, Victoria (Vikki) Line. She feels the typical adolescent mixture of familial love and rebelliousness. When she discovers a copy of her great-great grandfather's book, her parents forbid her to read it and actually burn it to remove the temptation. Of course, she finds a way to read the book anyway and manages to invoke a trans-dimensional being called a Space Hopper, who beckons her to explore the Mathiverse. In the tradition of Abbott's work, Stewart insinuates social commentary here and there; wry wit abounds and sometimes the puns can get quite merciless. Since Vikki is a mere two-dimensional being, she needs help visualizing different dimensions and gets plugged into a Virtual Unreality Engine (VUE). Instead of falling down a rabbit hole … la Alice in Wonderland, she gets whooshed up into another dimension. Indeed there are references to Lewis Carroll's classic; Vikki encounters a twisted Topologist's Tea Party, and a Schrodinger's Cat complete with disembodied mouth. Containing plenty of illustrations and analogies to help readers through the Mathiverse, Flatterland is an accessible introduction to a number of the abstract worlds for students who have progressed beyond Euclidian geometry and have at least heard of modern physics.
Sheila Shoup, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Scientific American
Flatland, published in 1884, portrayed a two-dimensional world in which women were lines and men were polygons. The author was A. Square, a pseudonym of British headmaster and Shakespearean scholar Edwin Abbott Abbott. His aim was to show the inhabitants of our three-dimensional world that there could be a fourth dimension--time--as strange to them as three dimensions were to the inhabitants of Flatland. Stewart, professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick in England and conductor until this year of the Mathematical Recreations department in these pages, wants to show the inhabitants of Planiturth--the three-dimensional world--that there is a Mathiverse with all conceivable "Spaces and Times." And so one reads of wormholes, cosmic strings, multiple universes and branes, among other wonders, in a presentation that is as entertaining as it is enlightening.
"A book in which the hard science is as gripping as the fiction...one for anyone with an interest in where science comes from ..." -- The Times
"Flatland challenged the familiar conception of three dimensions; Flatterland challenges the familiar conception of dimension itself." -- --New York Times, 4/21/01
"Filled with jokes and word-play, Flatterland is a joyous tour of more new kinds of spaces than you ever expected." -- -Rudy Rucker, author of The Fourth Dimension
"The most exciting book I have read this year...truly amazing." -- A. S. Byatt, Daily Telegraph
"... an accurate, informative portrayal of contemporary mathematics without a single equation in sight." -- Nature
"A provocative, ambitious, and enjoyable attempt to ask and answer some of the most interesting Big Questions of modern science..." -- New Scientist
"Flatterland challenges readers to go beyond Flatland to encounter and deal with phenomena in many exotic geometric realms..." -- -Thomas Banchoff, author of Beyond the Third Dimension
"... sure to be an instant classic... an engaging and infinite journey to the very fringes of space and time." -- -Clifford Pickover, author of Surfing through Hyperspace and Wonders of Numbers
About the Author
Ian Stewart is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick, where he is Director of the Mathematics Awareness Center. He has published more than sixty books, including Does God Play Dice?, Nature's Numbers, Figments of Reality, and most recently, The Science of Discworld (with Terry Pratchett and Jack Cohen). Stewart was awarded the Royal Society's Michael Faraday Medal for furthering the public understanding of science, and he delivered the prestigious Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 1997. He also writes science fiction and contributes to a wide range of newspapers and magazines in the U.K., Europe, and the United States.
In 1884, Edwin A. Abbott published a brilliant novel about mathematics and philosophy that charmed and fascinated all of England. As both a witty satire of Victorian society and a means by which to explore the fourth dimension, Flatland remains a tour de force. Now, British mathematician and accomplished science writer Ian Stewart has written a fascinating, modern sequel to Abbott's book. Through larger-than-life characters and an inspired story line, Flatterland explores our present understanding of the shape and origins of the universe, the nature of space, time, and matter, as well as modern geometries and their applications. The journey begins when our heroine, Victoria Line, comes upon her great-great-grandfather A. Square's diary, hidden in the attic. The writings help her to contact the Space Hopper, who becomes her guide and mentor through eleven dimensions. Along the way, we meet Schröger's Cat, The Charming Construction Entity, The Mandelblot (who lives in Fractalia), and Moobius the one-sided cow. In the tradition of Alice in Wonder-land and The Phantom Toll Booth, this magnificent investigation into the nature of reality is destined to become a modern classic.
Amazon.com Review
In 1884, an amiably eccentric clergyman and literary scholar named Edwin Abbott Abbott published an odd philosophical novel called Flatland , in which he explored such things as four-dimensional mathematics and gently satirized some of the orthodoxies of his time. The book went on to be a bestseller in Victorian England, and it has remained in print ever since.
With Flatterland , Ian Stewart, an amiable professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick, updates the science of Flatland , adding literally countless dimensions to Abbott's scheme of things ("Your world has not just four dimensions," one of his characters proclaims, "but five, fifty, a million, or even an infinity of them! And none of them need be time. Space of a hundred and one dimensions is just as real as a space of three dimensions"). Along his fictional path, Stewart touches on Feynman diagrams, superstring theory, time travel, quantum mechanics, and black holes, among many other topics. And, in Abbott's spirit, Stewart pokes fun at our own assumptions, including our quest for a Theory of Everything.
You can't help but be charmed by a book with characters named Superpaws, the Hawk King, the Projective Lion, and the Space Hopper and dotted with doggerel such as "You ain't nothin' but a hadron / nucleifyin' all the time" and "I can't get no / more momentum." And, best of all, you can learn a thing or two about modern mathematics while being roundly entertained. That's no small accomplishment, and one for which Stewart deserves applause. --Gregory McNamee
From Publishers Weekly
Higher mathematics and low comedy intersect acutely in this fuzzy follow-up to Edwin Abbott's 1884 classic, Flatland. Where Abbott's compact fable about a two-dimensional world discomposed by the discovery of a third dimension was a jeu d'esprit that slyly satirized rigid Victorian society, Stewart's sequel is an episodic ramble through the "flatterland" of modern mathematical theory that begins when teenaged Flatlander Vikki Line, great-great-granddaughter of Abbott's narrator, uses her ancestor's "hysterical document" as a passport to the Mathiverse. Accompanied by a Space Hopper guide, she tours landmarks of the post-Einsteinian universe that include fractal geometry, black holes, cosmic strings and quantum theory. Stewart (The Science of Discworld) keeps the tone light with incessant puns (a one-sided cow named "Moobius") and plays on names ("the Hawk King," who presides over a wormhole-ridden realm in the space-time continuum). The many line drawings that illustrate the text are both amusing and instructive. But the terrain Stewart sets out to explore is vast and abstract, and not all of the subjects he covers find a proper social analogue or cultural referent. The result is that lessons Vikki learns on some of the more abstruse principles still have a textbook stuffiness that even the author's Carrollian wit can't leaven. Though perplexing in spots, the tale is ever enchanting, and its user-friendly blend of fiction and nonfiction proves that the comic and cosmic need not be mutually exclusive. (May 1)Forecast: With advertising in Scientific American and the New Yorker and a 50,000-copy first printing, this should be a hit with the literate elite who also appreciate math and science.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-During Victorian times, Edwin A. Abbott wrote the popular mathematical classic Flatland, in which he introduced readers to the concept of four dimensions, as seen through the eyes of two-dimensional A. Square, while cleverly inserting social commentary on class structure and women. In Flatterland, Stewart tells modern readers the story of A. Square's teenage great-great granddaughter, Victoria (Vikki) Line. She feels the typical adolescent mixture of familial love and rebelliousness. When she discovers a copy of her great-great grandfather's book, her parents forbid her to read it and actually burn it to remove the temptation. Of course, she finds a way to read the book anyway and manages to invoke a trans-dimensional being called a Space Hopper, who beckons her to explore the Mathiverse. In the tradition of Abbott's work, Stewart insinuates social commentary here and there; wry wit abounds and sometimes the puns can get quite merciless. Since Vikki is a mere two-dimensional being, she needs help visualizing different dimensions and gets plugged into a Virtual Unreality Engine (VUE). Instead of falling down a rabbit hole … la Alice in Wonderland, she gets whooshed up into another dimension. Indeed there are references to Lewis Carroll's classic; Vikki encounters a twisted Topologist's Tea Party, and a Schrodinger's Cat complete with disembodied mouth. Containing plenty of illustrations and analogies to help readers through the Mathiverse, Flatterland is an accessible introduction to a number of the abstract worlds for students who have progressed beyond Euclidian geometry and have at least heard of modern physics.
Sheila Shoup, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Scientific American
Flatland, published in 1884, portrayed a two-dimensional world in which women were lines and men were polygons. The author was A. Square, a pseudonym of British headmaster and Shakespearean scholar Edwin Abbott Abbott. His aim was to show the inhabitants of our three-dimensional world that there could be a fourth dimension--time--as strange to them as three dimensions were to the inhabitants of Flatland. Stewart, professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick in England and conductor until this year of the Mathematical Recreations department in these pages, wants to show the inhabitants of Planiturth--the three-dimensional world--that there is a Mathiverse with all conceivable "Spaces and Times." And so one reads of wormholes, cosmic strings, multiple universes and branes, among other wonders, in a presentation that is as entertaining as it is enlightening.
Editors of Scientific American
From Booklist
Scientific American 's math writer offers a sequel to Flatland , Edwin Abbott's late-nineteenth-century fantasy about a two-dimensional universe disturbed by a visitor from the third dimension, the Sphere. Since Abbott's era, mathematicians and physicists have latched onto fourth, n th, and fractional dimensions, which mandates an update. Stewart introduces Flatlander Vikki Line, who discovers a great-grandfather's book that mentions the third dimension. Apoplectic about such apostasy, Vikki's father destroys the book, but she has saved a copy in her computer. She summons the Space Hopper to guide her through the "Mathiverse," the set of all possible spaces and times. As they alight in Topologica, Hyperbolica, Planiturthia, and elsewhere, the Space Hopper surveys the inhabitants' horizons while Vikki, bright line though she is, sweats her way to understanding. She and the Space Hopper proceed to atomic physics, where a quantum cat talks about being dead and alive in Schrodinger's box, and to relativity, ruled by the Hawk King. Yes, the puns are groaners, but Stewart's Flatland -plus makes it fun to think in more than three dimensions. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"A book in which the hard science is as gripping as the fiction...one for anyone with an interest in where science comes from ..." -- The Times
"Flatland challenged the familiar conception of three dimensions; Flatterland challenges the familiar conception of dimension itself." -- --New York Times, 4/21/01
"Filled with jokes and word-play, Flatterland is a joyous tour of more new kinds of spaces than you ever expected." -- -Rudy Rucker, author of The Fourth Dimension
"The most exciting book I have read this year...truly amazing." -- A. S. Byatt, Daily Telegraph
"... an accurate, informative portrayal of contemporary mathematics without a single equation in sight." -- Nature
"A provocative, ambitious, and enjoyable attempt to ask and answer some of the most interesting Big Questions of modern science..." -- New Scientist
"Flatterland challenges readers to go beyond Flatland to encounter and deal with phenomena in many exotic geometric realms..." -- -Thomas Banchoff, author of Beyond the Third Dimension
"... sure to be an instant classic... an engaging and infinite journey to the very fringes of space and time." -- -Clifford Pickover, author of Surfing through Hyperspace and Wonders of Numbers
About the Author
Ian Stewart is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick, where he is Director of the Mathematics Awareness Center. He has published more than sixty books, including Does God Play Dice?, Nature's Numbers, Figments of Reality, and most recently, The Science of Discworld (with Terry Pratchett and Jack Cohen). Stewart was awarded the Royal Society's Michael Faraday Medal for furthering the public understanding of science, and he delivered the prestigious Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 1997. He also writes science fiction and contributes to a wide range of newspapers and magazines in the U.K., Europe, and the United States.