Cosmology Curiosity

Flatland on films

Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland (1884) is now a movie (again). Two movies actually.

The first one is the half-hour Flatland: The Movie (2007). The movie stars Martin Sheen, Michael York, Kristen Bell, Joe Estevez, and Tony Hale.

At MathFest 2007 in San Jose, CA, Prof. Tom Banchoff (Flatland scholar and geometer) presented the movie to 500 math enthusiasts.

Click on the triangle in the middle of the screen below to preview the movie.

The second film is a 1.5-hour indie production, Flatland the Film (2007). This film is available from here and from Amazon. Three short clips can be seen from here. A review of the film is here.

Related post: Abbott's Flatland: Imagining the spatial dimensions
Related post: Fred Alan Wolf and Flatland

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Fred Alan Wolf and Flatland

Dr. Fred Alan Wolf (b. 1934) is a physicist and science popularizer.

Wolf received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1963 from UCLA. As an animated character he goes by the name of Captain Quantum or Dr. Quantum.

Dr. Wolf's writings on the interrelation of consciousness and quantum physics have been described in a Newsweek editorial as being "on the fringes of mainstream science".

Forgetting for the moment the criticism on Dr. Wolf about blending quantum phenomena with unfalsifiable metaphysical connections, Dr. Quantum's video above as inspired by Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland can help further visualize the spatial interrelations.

Dr. Quantum's other popular video is an animation about quantum mechanics' double-slit experiment.

Related post: Abbott's Flatland: Imagining the spatial dimensions
Related post: Flatland on films

Technorati Tags: 2D, 3D, 3rd dimension, Captain Quantum, Dr. Quantum, Edwin Abbott Abbott, Flatland, Fred Alan Wolf, spatial dimensions

Abbott's Flatland: Imagining the spatial dimensions

Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838-1926), English schoolmaster and theologian, is best known as the author of the mathematical satire and religious allegory Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884).

Here's the gist of the Flatland story, from PBS Nova's Imagining Other Dimensions:

"The square [the unnamed narrator in the story] describes his world as a plane populated by lines, circles, squares, triangles, and pentagons. Being two-dimensional, the inhabitants of Flatland appear as lines to one another. They discern one another's shape both by touching and by seeing how the lines appear to change in length as the inhabitants move around one another.

"One day, a sphere appears before the square. To the square, which can see only a slice of the sphere, the shape before him is that of a two-dimensional circle. The sphere has visited the square intent on making the square understand the three-dimensional world [Spaceland] that he, the sphere, belongs to. He explains the notions of "above" and "below," which the square confuses with "forward" and "back." When the sphere passes through the plane of Flatland to show how he can move in three dimensions, the square sees only that the line he'd been observing gets shorter and shorter and then disappears. No matter what the sphere says or does, the square cannot comprehend a space other than the two-dimensional world that he knows.

"Only after the sphere pulls the square out of his two-dimensional world and into the world of Spaceland does he finally understand the concept of three dimensions. From this new perspective, the square has a bird's-eye view of Flatland and is able to see the shapes of his fellow inhabitants (including, for the first time, their insides)."

Flatland is also a satire on the social hierarchy of Victorian society. But even today, Flatland continues to be popular, especially among mathematicians and computer science students. It's because Flatland provides a visualization of how the spatial dimensions interact.

[Image: Wikipedia]

Related post: Fred Alan Wolf and Flatland
Related post: Flatland on films

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Einstein's house in Princeton, NJ

If visiting Princeton (NJ), passing by 112 Mercer St. is a must. I did.

The house was Albert Einstein's from 1936 till his death in 1955. Thereafter, the ownership of the house transferred to the Institute of Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ) where Einstein was a member of the faculty until 1955.

From a biography of Einstein: "In August 1935 Einstein bought a single family house at 112 Mercer Street in Princeton, near the institute, in which he lived with his wife Elsa, his stepdaughter Margot and his secretary Helen Dukas."

The house is classified as a National Historic Landmark. The house is a private residence and is not open to the public.

Please see this Google map to find out how to get there.

Not far from Einstein's house is the Princeton Theological Seminary. PTS is located at 64 Mercer St.

Aside from Einstein, the quaint town of Princeton has been the home of other notable men like Jonathan Edwards, Grover Cleveland, and Woodrow Wilson.

[Image: Cosmology Curiosity]

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[Off-topic] The Eisenhower time management matrix

Blame inertia for making it hard to start writing again, after a long break.

So perhaps a little self-reminder on how to prioritize will help. And I happened to stumble upon the above video on the Eisenhower matrix of time management.

The principle is exactly the same as Stephen Covey's time management matrix per Covey's Habit No. 3. Eisenhower's matrix is also somewhat similar to David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD).

Trivia: Dwight Einsenhower had thought of the concept earlier than Covey and Allen.

The above video can be also be seen from here and here.

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