Flatland

Medium: Digital Design   Tools: Adobe Photoshop

Imagine a world with only length and width—no depth, a plane if you will. This is the world of Flatland, the main setting in Edwin Abbott Abbott’s novel, where a humble Square believes his two-dimensional world is the only reality. But when a mysterious Sphere from “Spaceland” arrives, his perspective is forever changed.

Written before the advent of relativity or quantum theory, Flatland was ahead of its time, daring to flirt the idea of infinite dimensions. We still have no idea what the true dimensionality of the universe is. Theories like String Theory suggest there could be up to 10 or 11 dimensions, far beyond what we can perceive in our three-dimensional experience. The book challenged me to imagine beyond Pointland, Lineland, Flatland, and Spaceland, to conceive new notions of space-time and wonder if our universe might contain a Hilbert’s Grand Hotel of dimensions.

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