Scientific Romances (First Series)

by Charles Howard Hinton

In the next two or three of these papers certain questions connected with the subject of a space higher than our own will be treated. It is well, therefore, first to recede and to form definite conceptions about a world of plane space, about a world in which the beings can only move in two independent directions. Then, proceeding thence to our own world, we may gain the means of passing on to a higher world. And I should have wished to be able to refer the reader altogether to that ingenious work, “Flatland.” But on turning over its pages again, I find that the author has used his rare talent for a purpose foreign to the intent of our work. For evidently the physical conditions of life on the plane have not been his main object. He has used them as a setting wherein to place his satire and his lessons. But we wish, in the first place, to know the physical facts.

With this aim it is necessary to form a clear idea of what matter would be in a world of two dimensions, and the following illustration is a convenient one.

Place on the smooth surface of a table a half-crown piece, and suppose it to slide on the table perfectly freely. Imagine it to exercise an attractive force along the surface of the table in all directions round itself. By it and near it place a sixpence, and let the sixpence also slide freely on the table. It will, however, not be so free to move equally in all directions as the half-crown was, for it will be attracted by the half-crown. It will slip over the surface of the table under the influence of this supposed force, and will come into contact with the half-crown. Now if we suppose that both the half-crown and the sixpence are very thin, that they are both of them only the thickness of the ultimate particles of matter, then we shall have a representation of what material bodies will be in a plane world.

We must suppose that the particles cannot lift themselves or be lifted up from the plane so as to lie upon each other. Under no circumstances can they quit the surface of the plane.

Moreover, at no point must the particles adhere to the plane, nor must there be any friction impeding their movements over it. The only purpose which the support serves is to keep them on the same level surface and to convey influences from one particle to another. The gravity which we know, and which acts at right angles to the table on which the coins rest, will not have any effect on the particles in their motions on the plane, but will simply keep them to the plane. Any force of attraction which concerns their motions proceeds from one particle to another. Thus, conceive the half-crown to be a very large disk of matter, and the sixpence to be a sentient being. This being would feel a force of attraction towards the centre of the half-crown, and this force of attraction would keep him to the rim of the half-crown. If he weighed anything it would be by balancing it with his weight against the force which tended to pull it to the centre of the half-crown. He would not feel the gravity which keeps him against the surface of the table; he would not know that there was a hard, smooth surface on which he rested. He would always have been in contact with it, and so he could not tell what it would be like to be free from it. He would have no contrast whereby to apprehend its effect on him. Moreover, he would only know of movements in directions along the plane. He would not conceive that such a thing was possible as movement in another direction than to and fro, hither and thither on the plane. It is difficult to suppose that a being would be supported on one side by a plane, and not be in contact with anything on the other side, even atmosphere. Yet if we suppose a being of real matter free to move on the plane, this is what must be conceived. If the sixpence is conceived as such a being, it must receive its impressions through its rim. The rim represents its skin.

And if it be supposed to be surrounded by air for its respiration, this air must not be able, any more than the particles of solid matter, to rise away from the plane. The plane being must be conceived to have a different air to that which we know. The particles of its air, however free to move amongst themselves, must not have the power of moving away from the surface of the plane, as if so they would be able to pass to the interior of the body without passing through the skin. Any passage leading to the interior of the body would have to terminate in an opening in the rim, otherwise it would be completely shut up from the exterior.

Now it is obvious that if the table is struck so that it quivers, this movement will be communicated to the coins lying on it. Either the coins as a whole will move, or their particles will be disturbed.

Again, if we suppose there to be some particles loosely cohering together, lying on a smooth sheet of iron, it is evident that the quivering and jostling of the iron, if it is struck, would have an effect on the particles, and may cause the breaking up of the thin masses in which the particles cohere. Thus, if the material of which the sheet is composed be very dense and rigid, compared to the substances lying on it, they may undergo many alterations, being broken up and coming together again while the supporting matter which bears them all up simply moves and vibrates.