![]() ![]() In addition to an annotated Flatland and a trippy follow-up ( Flatterland, natch), he has collaborated on four educational books about the science of Terry Pratchett's Discworld, in which wizards ponder the strange technology of Earth from a separate (magical) dimension. Stewart considers Flatland one of the earliest works of popular science, a genre he's been writing in for decades (his latest book came out in October). In a two-dimensional universe populated by a hierarchical society of geometric figures, a square is persecuted for. “Starting with Flatland's point of view,” he says, “you find a way in.” ![]() For instance, a crazy 4-D sphere (called a glome) might appear to us as expanding and contracting spherical cross-sections. That's the trick Stewart uses: By describing what it's like for a flat object to imagine a solid one, he can help us imagine an object in four dimensions. Though Square can't experience all three of the sphere's dimensions, he can see it in cross-section as a circle of various sizes. He can't conceive of depth, but his perspective expands when a sphere visits him from 3-D Spaceland. ![]() Square, a regular quadrilateral who lives on a 2-D plane. ![]()
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