Curiosidades sobre o professor inglês Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838 – 1926)
Curiosidades...
Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838 – 1926) foi um professor inglês.
Abbott foi um excelente professor:
"His greatness as an educator derived partly from his organization of new methods of instruction, partly from his initiation of many innovations in the school curriculum, and partly from what can only be called his genius for teaching. Having a reverence for physical science not often found among the classical scholars of his day, he made an elementary knowledge of chemistry compulsory throughout the upper school."
Edwin Abbott é mais conhecido pelo seu popular livro Flatland: A romance of many dimensions (1884), escrito sob o pseudónimo de A Square. O livro teve muitas edições. Mais recentemente, em 2002, uma versão anotada de Flatland foi produzida com uma introdução e notas de Ian Stewart, que oferece uma ampla discussão de tópicos matemáticos relacionados a passagens no texto de Abbott. Também já foram realizados vários filmes a partir deste livro, Flatland: The Movie (2007) e Flatland 2: Sphereland (2012).
Flatland é um relato das aventuras de A Square em Lineland e Spaceland. Nele, Abbott tenta popularizar a noção de geometria multidimensional, mas o livro também é uma sátira inteligente sobre os valores sociais, morais e religiosos da altura.
É importante notar que este notável trabalho escrito por Abbott antecedeu em muitos anos o mundo quadridimensional da relatividade de Einstein. Abbott escreveu um Prefácio que contém o seguinte:
“It is true that we have really in Flatland a Third unrecognised Dimension called 'height,' just as it also is true that you have really in Spaceland a Fourth unrecognised Dimension, called by no name at present, but which I will call 'extra-height.' But we can no more take cognisance of our 'height' than you can of your 'extra-height.' ...
Suppose a person of the Fourth Dimension, condescending to visit you, were to say, 'Whenever you open your eyes, you see a Plane (which is of Two Dimensions) and you infer a Solid (which is of Three); but in reality you also see (though you do not recognise) a Fourth Dimension, which is not colour nor brightness nor anything of the kind, but a true Dimension, although I cannot point out to you its direction, nor can you possibly measure it.' What would you say to such a visitor? Would not you have him locked up? Well, that is my fate: and it is as natural for us Flatlanders to lock up a Square for preaching the Third Dimension, as it is for you Spacelanders to lock up a Cube for preaching the Fourth. Alas, how strong a family likeness runs through blind and persecuting humanity in all Dimensions! Points, Lines, Squares, Cubes, Extra-Cubes - we are all liable to the same errors, all alike the Slavers of our respective Dimensional prejudices ...”
Deixamos o vídeo Cosmos - 4th Dimension onde Carl Sagan introduz o tema abordado no livro de Edwin Abbott. Não perca!
Fonte: https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Abbott/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland
Por Adília Marinho