Flatterland - Softcover

Stewart, Ian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330393774 ISBN 13: 9780330393775

Publisher: Pan Books, 2003

Synopsis

In 1884, Edwin A. Abbott published a brilliant novel about mathematics and philosophy that charmed and fascinated all of England. As both a witty satire of Victorian society and a means by which to explore the fourth dimension, Flatland remains a tour de force.

Now, British mathematician and accomplished science writer Ian Stewart has written a fascinating, modern sequel to Abbott's book. Through larger-than-life characters and an inspired story line, Flatterland explores our present understanding of the shape and origins of the universe, the nature of space, time, and matter, as well as modern geometries and their applications. The journey begins when our heroine, Victoria Line, comes upon her great-great-grandfather A. Square's diary, hidden in the attic.

"The most exciting book I have read this year...truly amazing." A.S. Byatt, Daily Telegraph

"A book in which the hard science is as gripping as the fiction" The Times

"A provocative, ambitious, and enjoyable attempt to ask and answer some of the most interesting Big Questions of modern science..." New Scientist

About this title

Review:

With Flatterland, Ian Stewart returns with more fantastically mind-bending mathematical puzzles. In 1884, an amiably eccentric clergyman and literary scholar named Edwin Abbott Abbott published an odd philosophical novel called Flatland, in which he explored such things as four-dimensional mathematics and gently satirised some of the orthodoxies of his time. The book went on to be a bestseller in Victorian England, and it has remained in print ever since.

With Flatterland, Stewart, professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick, updates the science of Flatland, adding literally countless dimensions to Abbott's scheme of things. ("Your world has not just four dimensions," one of his characters proclaims, "but five, fifty, a million, or even an infinity of them! And none of them need be time. Space of a hundred and one dimensions is just as real as a space of three dimensions.") Along his fictional path, Stewart touches on Feynman diagrams, superstring theory, time travel, quantum mechanics and black holes, among many other topics. And, in Abbott's spirit, Stewart pokes fun at our own assumptions, including our quest for a Theory of Everything.

You can't help but be charmed by a book with characters named Superpaws, the Hawk King, the Projective Lion and the Space Hopper, and one dotted with doggerel such as "You ain't nothin' but a hadron / nucleifyin' all the time" and "I can't get no / more momentum". And, best of all, you can learn a thing or two about modern mathematics while being roundly entertained. That's no small accomplishment, and one for which Stewart deserves applause. --Gregory McNamee

Review:

"The most exciting book I have read this year...truly amazing." A.S. Byatt, Daily Telegraph "A book in which the hard science is as gripping as the fiction" The Times "A provocative, ambitious, and enjoyable attempt to ask and answer some of the most interesting Big Questions of modern science..." New Scientist

About this edition

• Publisher: Pan Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0330393774
• ISBN 13: 9780330393775
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320