
Aspiring to a Higher Plane: “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions” (2011) - Hooke
http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/09/19/aspiring-to-a-higher-plane/
======
ricksplat
If you can find it, "The Dot and the Line" is another brilliant tale along
these (ahem) lines [0]

I've had a look around and cannot find it online, though the excellent
animated adaptation is easy to find [1] - well worth picking up the hardcopy
as a beautifully designed picture book.

I'd also recommend Norton Juster's other work "The Phantom Tollboth" as being
another great math & science inspired kids fairy-tale type book [2]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dot_and_the_Line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dot_and_the_Line)

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmSbdvzbOzY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmSbdvzbOzY)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Tollbooth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Tollbooth)

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clentaminator
Something that surprised me when reading Flatland for the first time was the
seemingly high levels of both sexism and classism.

While the classism mostly consisted of the typical oft-repeated jabs that
don't really mean anything, the sexism felt much stronger. So much so that I
assumed that it was meant to be satire. But is it reflective of the views that
were prevalent at the time it was written?

~~~
ExceptionRaised
Flatland is satire:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland#As_a_social_satire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland#As_a_social_satire)

~~~
rubidium
To echo this, it was written primarily as a social satire. The mathematical
part was more of a sub plot (but still fun and interesting).

------
Animats
For people who think this universe is a simulation, maybe the simulation is
possible because the next universe up has more dimensions. (Maybe the 20+
dimensions some string theorists talk about.) Despite Flatland, you can't
really do much in 2D; the connectivity is too limited. 3D is a minimum for
life.

Computing would work better in a higher dimensional space. Propagation delay
is less of a problem because you can have more things closer to each other.
Cooling would be easier with an extra dimension or two into which heat could
be radiated.

But if higher dimensional beings want to run a universe simulation, 3D would
be enough for entertainment purposes.

~~~
theeponymous
When you go one level deeper, you realize that there's no difference between a
simulation of a universe and a universe.

This is only tangential, but a few months ago I vaporized 50mg of DMT after
spending a day studying linear algebra and differential equations. You only
ever take back flashes, but I remember seeing this higher-dimensional
hypercube where every "face" of the cube was a 3 dimensional space. I came
away from that trip feeling that our universe was just one of infinitely many
solutions to a higher-dimensional equation. I still haven't decided if that
makes any sense or not.

~~~
amelius
> but I remember seeing this higher-dimensional hypercube where every "face"
> of the cube was a 3 dimensional space

Cool. Did everything else appear "flat" in comparison?

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teh_klev
Although not the same article, there was a previous discussion on HN about
Flatland a few years back. There's some interesting comments and links, I'll
post the link here just in case there's not much traction this time around:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2086425](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2086425)

------
Pamar
Game author Marcus Rowland created a "Flatland RPG" as part of his Forgotten
Futures project (a series of games about Scientific Romances: the genre that
later became SciFi):
[http://www.forgottenfutures.co.uk/flatland_lite.pdf](http://www.forgottenfutures.co.uk/flatland_lite.pdf)

------
Synaesthesia
A related book you may find interesting is "Spaceland" by Rudy Rucker - it's
set in Silicon Valley during the dot-com boon - a tech executive get's a visit
from the 4th dimension. It's a hilarious and modern update to Flatland.

------
JoeDaDude
As mentioned in the article, there were, not one, but two animated films
released based on the book:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland:_The_Movie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland:_The_Movie)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland_%282007_film%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland_%282007_film%29)

~~~
david-given
I have the second one. It's... well, I don't know whether to recommend it or
not.

Part of the conceit of the film is that it's continuously interrupted by
snarky title cards. The action continues, you can hear the audio, but all you
_see_ is the title card. For me, this single thing completely ruined the
otherwise excellent film --- they weren't required to understand the story,
they didn't add anything to the theme, they just got in the way, every single
time. They're painfully, painfully long, too.

If there was a version of the film which was otherwise identical but without
the title cards, I'd definitely suggest checking it out. As it is, YMMV.

Hey, it's on Youtube.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfglluny8Z0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfglluny8Z0)

------
bsenftner
I remember reading this out of curiosity about 3rd grade, in the US about 8-9
years old. I read the sequel right after, enjoying that too:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphereland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphereland)
It triggered a life long interest in geometry and classical philosophical
documents.

------
andrewfromx
now is the time to learn about or review your understanding of a
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract)

