Math Mutation Classics: Exploring Interesting, Fun and Weird Corners of Mathematics

© Erik Seligman 2016

Erik SeligmanMath Mutation Classics10.1007/978-1-4842-1892-1_4

4. Deeper Dimensions

Erik Seligman¹ 

(1)

Hillsboro, Oregon, USA

 

I still remember the first time I read Edwin Abbott’s classic 19th-century novel Flatland, back when I was in the 6th grade. Flatland tells the story of A. Square, a square-shaped creature who lives in a world that exists entire on a two-dimensional plane: he can move forward, backward, left, or right, but has no idea that the directions of up and down even exist. All he can see is other objects in his plane, which all look like mere lines from his plane-confined point of view. Eventually he is visited by a sphere from the 3rd dimension, and is amazed by its “tricks” such as the ability to get smaller ...