COMPLEX SPACES

The imaginative view of space has played with the idea of 'dimensions': in addition to our usual normal vision of three-dimensional space, could we imagine a space with fewer dimensions - a plane in two dimensions- , or a space in four dimensions more complex than our own space?

• From Flatland to higher dimensions

  In 1884, Edwin Abbott, a Shakespearian scholar, published Flatland , a story about a land in two dimensions, where the inhabitants view each other and their surroundings as lines in a plane.

  Only ourselves, who live in three dimensions, are able to see the plan of their houses. So that moving to a higher dimension enables us to distinguish between outer and inner spaces.
  Could we pursue the argument, and reason about a four-dimensional world encompassing our three-dimensional world, in the same way as our three dimensions include the two dimensions of Flatland?

• Hyperspace

  Scientists, artists and writers have played with the idea of spaces with more dimensions than our three-dimensional space: this is 'hyperspace' in the original sense of the term (see the question on the history of the word).

   

• Complex spaces and the experience of the city

Can we relate these notions of complex spaces to the experience of multiple spaces in the city?

• inner and outer spaces
• time as linked to space