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The Fourth Dimension - by Rudy Rucker

Book Review, © Copyright 2000, Jim Loy

This book is subtitled, "A guide to the higher universes." In 1884 Edwin Abbott Abbott wrote the classic fantasy (and mathematics) story Flatland (subtitled "A romance in many dimensions"). Flatland has only two dimensions, and is populated with lines (females), triangles, squares, polygons, and circles. And these inhabitants see some things differently than we do. The idea is to teach the reader some things about a fourth dimension. Flatlanders cannot visualize a third dimension, and we have the same trouble with a fourth dimension. The story is mind expanding and well worth reading.

The Fourth Dimension - by Rudy Rucker, expands upon Abbott's idea, taking it into curved space, and black holes, and beyond. It looks very good. I have not read much of it yet. Another book on the same subject is Beyond the Third Dimension by Thomas F. Banchoff and subtitled: "Geometry, Computer Graphics, and Higher Dimensions (Scientific American Library Series)."


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