I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space.Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows-only hard and with luminous edges-and you will then have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen. Alas, a few years ago, I should have said "my universe": but now my mind has been opened to higher views of things.In such a country, you will perceive at once that it is impossible that there should be anything of what you call a "solid" kind; but I dare say you will suppose that we could at least distinguish by sight the Triangles, Squares, and other figures, moving about as I have described them. On the contrary, we could see nothing of the kind, not at least so as to distinguish one figure from another. Nothing was visible, nor could be visible, to us, except Straight Lines; and the necessity of this I will speedily demonstrate.Place a penny on the middle of one of your tables in Space; and leaning over it, look down upon it. It will appear a circle.But now, drawing back to the edge of the table, gradually lower your eye (thus bringing yourself more and more into the condition of the inhabitants of Flatland), and you will find the penny becoming more and more oval to your view, and at last when you have placed your eye exactly on the edge of the table (so that you are, as it were, actually a Flatlander) the penny will then have ceased to appear oval at all, and will have become, so far as you can see, a straight line.
- 132 pages
- English
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Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, Illustrated
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Table of contents
- Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, Illustrated
- Preface
- PART I: THIS WORLD
- Section 1. Of the Nature of Flatland
- Section 2. Of the Climate and Houses in Flatland
- Section 3. Concerning the Inhabitants of Flatland
- Section 4. Concerning the Women
- Section 5. Of our Methods of Recognizing one another
- Section 6. Of Recognition by Sight
- Section 7. Concerning Irregular Figures
- Section 8. Of the Ancient Practice of Painting
- Section 9. Of the Universal Colour Bill
- Section 10. Of the Suppression of the Chromatic Sedition
- Section 11. Concerning our Priests
- Section 12. Of the Doctrine of our Priests
- PART II: OTHER WORLDS
- Section 13. How I had a Vision of Lineland
- Section 14. How I vainly tried to explain the nature of Flatland
- Section 15. Concerning a Stranger from Spaceland
- Section 16. How the Stranger vainly endeavoured to reveal to mein words the mysteries of Spaceland
- Section 17. How the Sphere, having in vain tried words,resorted to deeds
- Section 18. How I came to Spaceland, and what I saw there
- Section 19. How, though the Sphere shewed me other mysteriesof Spaceland, I still desired more; and what came of it
- Section 20. How the Sphere encouraged me in a Vision
- Section 21. How I tried to teach the Theory of Three Dimensionsto my Grandson, and with what success
- Section 22. How I then tried to diffuse the Theoryof Three Dimensions by other means, and of the result
- Copyright
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Yes, you can access Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, Illustrated by Edwin A. Abbot in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Science Fiction. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.