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Flatland: Difference between revisions
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'''''[http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~banchoff/Flatland/ Flatland: A Romance Of Many Dimensions]''''' is a 1884 satirical novella by Edwin A. Abbott. The story takes place in a two-dimensional world made up of polygons, and is narrated by a square. Named [[Steven Ulysses Perhero|A. Square]]. It's also a scathing dissection of Victorian class structures, of biological racism and eugenics, and of misogyny.
The square dreams one night about visiting Lineland, where there is only one dimension, and he tries and fails to explain his existence and that of a second dimension to its king. Later, a sphere from Spaceland speaks to him, pokes his insides, and appears before him in his home, then carries him in an incomprehensibly new direction called "up", where he is able to look down and see into houses and the insides of the other polygons. Suddenly understanding, he speculates that there may be dimensions beyond Spaceland, but the sphere is discomfited by this and returns him to Flatland, where he seems to just appear. Later, he is imprisoned for this talk of a third dimension, and he dreams of himself and the sphere visiting Pointland, where the Point -- monarch, sole inhabitant, and universe in one -- is unable to perceive them as anything but his own thoughts. This causes him to connect the uncomprehending ignorance of the Point, the king of Lineland, and the rulers of Flatland together with the sphere's astonishment at the thought of some dimension beyond Up.
It is part sci-fi, part satire, part philosophy, and part mathematics. [[Isaac Asimov]] described Flatland as "The best introduction one can find into the manner of perceiving dimensions".
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* [[Skepticism Failure]]: A. Square and the Linelanders are skeptical of higher dimensions, and the plot proves them wrong.
* [[Small Secluded World]]: Pointland.
* [[Spiritual Successor]]: ''[[The Planiverse]]'' by A.K. Dewdney, a 1984 [[wikipedia:The Planiverse|novel]] about a college professor and a team of students who create a 2D world simulation which somehow contacts a real 2D world.
* [[Stay in the Kitchen]]: Women are restricted in their social roles because they are dangerously sharp lines. They are restricted because they can kill people by walking into them: it is segregation based on a physical characteristic.
* [[Straw Man]]: The Flatland priests and government officials' view of <s>the</s> a world not being flat.
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