Flatland

Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions (German title " Flatland ") is a 1884 published by Edwin Abbott Abbott under the Psyeudonym A. Square novella. The font is a satire on the structure of the Victorian Society and a mathematical essay on the fourth dimension

Content

A. Square, the narrator in Flatland, lives in a flat, so two-dimensional world whose inhabitants have the form of simple geometric shapes and subject to a strict caste system. Women are straight lines. Soldiers and workers are isosceles triangles. They belong to the lower class and do not enjoy social prestige, as not all of its sides are equal and they are therefore as disfigured. However, because of their acute angle they are dangerous because they can so easily hurt other figures deadly. The middle class form equilateral triangles such as merchants. In addition are the scholars who are squares, as the narrator himself, or pentagons. All figures with six or more pages belong to the nobility, and their social position is the higher, the more pages they have. The highest social position have held the circles that form the priestly caste. In Flatland, it is natural law that every male descendant of an equilateral father one page more than this. As each generation rises by one step, with the exception of the progeny of isosceles triangles. The isosceles triangles remain in the social hierarchy, always on a stage.

In the first part of the book, which is a satire on the structure of Victorian society, describes in detail the square of the social characteristics of Flatland. In particular, the complicated methods are presented, with which the inhabitants identify what shape your counterpart and is thus how to deal with him.

In the second part, which is a mathematical essay on the existence of a fourth spatial dimension, visited the A. Square in a dream, the one-dimensional line country, a world whose inhabitants are only different long distances on a straight line, their length makes their social position. In vain he tried to convince the king of country line assumes that there is still another dimension. Another dream leads him to the zero-dimensional point of land where he sees nothing but a zero-dimensional point that only knows himself and praises in self-talk in glowing terms. Back in his two-dimensional world the narrator appears a ball, a guest from our three-dimensional world. Only after long effort succeeds the ball to convince the square of the existence of the third dimension, and she takes it with a scenic flight over his two-dimensional home. The now got the full knowledge of the dimensionality narrator then strikes the ball, his teacher, is by even the conceivability four - and higher-dimensional worlds describes what the ball upset that pushes him therefore back into his world. When the narrator wants to spread his knowledge of higher dimensions finally among the inhabitants of Flatland, he encounters but only for irritation and eventually imprisoned as a rebel.

Interpretation

Abbott wanted to promote his social satire, the geometric or stereometric thinking of his readers and caricature society and prejudices of his time. Residents surface lands have very rigid etiquette and consider women who are lines with them when intellectually impaired, which can be interpreted as an exaggerated distortion of the conditions of Victorian England.

Today the book next to his undiminished entertainment value is mainly interesting because the reader a vivid impression is conveyed from other rooms. The idea of the four - and multi-dimensional spaces of mathematics and physics, we are guilty of similar hard as the square of the use of the self-evident for us three-dimensional space.

Reception

An inspired from Flatland short story published in his own lifetime, the mathematician Charles Howard Hinton Abbotts 1907 under the title An Episode on Flatland: Or How a Plain Folk Discovered the Third Dimension. 2001, the novel was published in flat country of the mathematics professor Ian Stewart, who transmits Abbott's work using current mathematical and physical knowledge in the present. Stewart's novel retains despite his obviously higher scientific content ( topics like Feynman diagrams, superstring theory and quantum mechanics are installed) the satirical character, but transfers it to the unreality of today's physical world view. Dionys Burger published his novel New Year's Eve calls a hexagon a continuation Flatlands, whose main character is a grandson A. Squares.

The series The Big Bang Theory refers to Abbott's work ( Season 3 Episode 12).

Translations into German

There are five German -language translations (see "German-language editions " ) Werner Bieck offers in his 1929 published selection translation is not the full text of Peter Buck used in its 1982 published transmission freer translation style and defused -. . According to his preface - the " misogynistic representations " in amended. Joachim Kalka, Antje Kaehler and Daniel Tibi stay close in their translations to the original text and thus retain the social criticism.

Expenditure

• Edwin A. Abbott: Flatland: A romance of many dimensions. Seeley, London 1884.
• Edwin A. Abbott: Flatland: A romance of many dimensions. Seeley, London 2nd and rev. ed in 1884.
• Edwin A. Abbott: Flatland: A romance of many dimensions. Basil Blackwell, Oxford 3rd and rev. ed 1926.

These three classic English editions followed a variety of modern issues. Among his noted:

• Ian Stewart: The Annotated Flatland. Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, 2002. ISBN 0-7382-0541-9
• Edwin A. Abbott: Flatland: A romance of many dimensions. Ed. by Rosemary Jann. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006. ISBN 0-19-280598-3

German -language editions

• Edwin A. Abbott: Flatland. A history of the dimensions. Selected and translated into German by Werner Bieck. Teubner, Leipzig, 1929.
• Edwin A. Abbott: Flatland. A multi-faceted novel. Edited and transl. by Peter Buck. Franz Becker, Bad Salzdetfurth 1982. ISBN 3-88120-020-7
• Edwin A. Abbott: Flatland. A multi-faceted novel. Übers v. Joachim Kalka. Götz, Laxenburg, 1999. ISBN 3-9501011-0-1
• Edwin A. Abbott: Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. Übers v. Antje Kaehler. Rabaka, New Churches, 2009. ISBN 978-3-940185-15-0
• Edwin A. Abbott: Flatland. A fantastic story about many dimensions. Übers v. Daniel Tibi. Verlag Traugott Bautz, Nordhausen, 2012. ISBN 978-3-88309-767-1