clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org
clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org
clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org
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THE DIVINITY OF HIGHER DIMENSIONS 25<br />
You open Flatland, searching for a particular page. "Remember, in the<br />
nineteenth century women were considered much less able than men. I<br />
think Abbott was trying to show some of the society's prejudices, because<br />
later in the book a sphere visits Flatland and says: 'It is not for me to classify<br />
human faculties according to merit. Yet many of the best and wisest<br />
of Spaceland think more of your despised Straight Lines than of your<br />
belauded Circles.'"<br />
Sally nods.<br />
"Here, let me read a passage to you in which the square is speaking":<br />
I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its<br />
nature clearer to you, my happy readers who are privileged to live in<br />
Space. . . . Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which Lines, Triangles,<br />
Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining<br />
in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without<br />
the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows—and<br />
you will then have a pretty correct notion of my country<br />
and countrymen. Alas, a few years ago, I should have said "my universe"<br />
but now my mind has been opened to higher view of things.<br />
Outside the window of your office, dark clouds race against the city's<br />
skyline. There's a storm due later tonight. You and Sally look up as a<br />
honk-honk-honk of Canadian geese ride the winds to their winter haven<br />
along the Tangiers Sound. Just overnight, hundreds of ospreys and other<br />
birds were in Washington, D.C., and even on the roof of the FBI building.<br />
You don't mind the duck calls occasionally waking you at night. In<br />
fact, you love the finches and chickadees that flutter about your feeders.<br />
The vultures, however, give you the creeps. Sometimes they perch on the<br />
dead tree in your backyard. At night, they remind you of dark vampires.<br />
Sally looks back at you. "If all the creatures of Flatland move<br />
around in a plane, and only see things in the plane, how can they tell<br />
one another apart? Wouldn't they only see each other's sides?"<br />
"Excellent question. Their atmosphere is hazy and attenuates light.<br />
Those parts of the creature's sides that are farther from the viewer's eye<br />
get dimmer. Close parts are brighter and clearer. Don't f<strong>org</strong>et that our<br />
own retina is a 2-D surface, yet we can distinguish all sorts of objects; for<br />
example, we can tell the difference between a sphere and a disc simply by<br />
their shading."