Volume 49, Number 20 · December 19, 2002
Geometrical Creatures
By Jim Holt
The Annotated Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
by Edwin A. Abbott, with an introduction and notes by Ian Stewart
Perseus, 239 pp., $30.00
Flatterland: Like Flatland, Only More So
by Ian Stewart
Perseus, 301 pp., $14.00 (paper)
One feature of the world that few people stop to puzzle over is how many dimensions it has. Although it is a little tricky to say just what a dimension is, it does seem fairly obvious that we, the objects that surround us, and the space we move about in are structured by three dimensions, conventionally referred to as length, width, and depth. Even philosophers have tended to take this for granted. Aristotle, at the beginning of On the Heavens, declared that 'the three dimensions are all there are.' Why? Because, he argued in a somewhat mystical vein, the number three comprises beginning, middle, and end. Therefore, it is perfect and complete.
Review, 3720 words
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