Flatland - A Romance of Many Dimensions

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is a satirical novella by the English schoolmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott, first published in 1884. It describes a two-dimensional world occupied by geometric figures, whereof women are simple line-segments, while men are polygons with various numbers of sides. The narrator is a square, who guides the reader through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. On the eve of the 3rd Millennium, the Square dreams about a visit to Lineland, a one-dimensional world, where he tries to convince the realm's monarch of a second dimension. The square is then visited by a three-dimensional sphere, which visits Flatland at the turn of each millennium to introduce a new apostle to the idea of a third dimension in the hopes of eventually educating the population of Flatland. This 19th century work can arguably be categorised as mathematical fiction as much as it can be regarded as science fiction. In common with the best science fiction it opens the reader's mind to new horizons.