Page:Flatland, a Romance of Many Dimensions (1963, fifth edition).djvu/8

 and the simplest element is an "event." One set of parallel sections of the four-dimensional continuum present the universe as it exists in three-dimensional space at the instants corresponding to the sections. Sections in all other directions involve the time element and represent the universe as it appears to an observer in motion.

There are some mathematical minds which are completely satisfied by the results expressed in algebraical symbols of the analysis of a continuum of four dimensions; but there are others which crave for the visualization of these results which, in their symbolic forms, they do not question. To many, perhaps to the great majority, of these, Dr. Abbott's sphere penetrating Flatland points the way to the clearest imagery of the fourth dimension to which they are likely to attain.

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