flatland :: essays research papers

"Flatland" is a story of depth, and the lack there of. The tale of A. Squares ventures through Pointland, Lineland and Spaceland ultimately reveal to him the possibilities of the seemingly impossible. In this case, the "impossibilities" are the very human race of other dimensions, or worlds.      His guide throughout the journey, a god - like figure who refers to itself as "Sphere", bestows upon A. Square the greatest gift he could foretaste for, knowledge. It is only after the Sphere forcibly takes A. Square out of his dimension, however, that he is able to shrug off his ignorance and accept the fact that what can non be, can, and much of what he believed onwards is wrong. When he sees first hand that a feather can have depth simply by lining up a parallel square above it and connecting the vertices with lines he is awestruck by its beauty. A cube now exists, seemingly made out of squares. Where there was but one square sooner now th ere are six connected. To A. Squares mindset, this thing of beauty is something he could become if only he could lift up. It gives him hope, for in his world you are ranked without say according to your shape. From the lowest convict shapes to the - not - preferably - perfectly - round - but - practically - there priests. When A. Square asks the sphere deity what comes next, what almost the fourth dimension, Sphere becomes vexed and sends A. Square plummeting back to his original world without the necessary knowledge to be effective in spreading the gospel of the ternion dimension. This is, of course, what leads to the end for A. Square being locked up in an insane asylum for speaking of what simply cannot be. Adding to the irony is that no matter how hard A. Square tries, it is quite impossible for him to demonstrate it within the two dimensional realm. The knowledge that he thirsted for was his demise.     "Flatland" is a book which main purpose is t o make the reader think it raises many an(prenominal) questions. Is there a fourth, fifth, sixth, infinite dimensions? Logically, there should be. Just as there is a dimension zero, a dimension one, a second and third dimension, should not there also be a fourth? The Sphere speaks to A. Square of Geometrical Progression 1, 2, 4 and hints that it goes beyond even that (to 8).