Spaceland
There were quite a few Rudy Rucker's books I enjoyed over the years. Hacker and the Ants, the Software/Freeware/Wetware trilogy, White Light... All were fun, quirky, and incorporated some math aspects.
Spaceland is certainly no exception. The action revolves around the 4th dimension (no, not time, a physical extra dimension). There is a plot involving the 4th dimensional beings and the spaceland - a semi-3 dimensional slice (a few nanometers "thick") in the 4th dimension that happens to be our universe.
There are a lot of cool insights into dimensions in the book, mostly about how a 2 dimensional universal would look to its inhabitants (since this is easiest one for readers to understand) and 4 dimensional space and objects to 3 dimensional eyes (since it's how we'd see it). Other dimensions make brief apparences as well (0-d and 1-d too, around the end of the book).
Pretty cool. I really recommend it, but if "thought experiments" aren't your thing you might not enjoy it as much as I did.
Hacker and the Ants is well worth a read and more conventional, too. Some VR parts of the plot might feel a little dated, though. (Note that I read the original and the link is for version 2.0)
Spaceland is certainly no exception. The action revolves around the 4th dimension (no, not time, a physical extra dimension). There is a plot involving the 4th dimensional beings and the spaceland - a semi-3 dimensional slice (a few nanometers "thick") in the 4th dimension that happens to be our universe.
There are a lot of cool insights into dimensions in the book, mostly about how a 2 dimensional universal would look to its inhabitants (since this is easiest one for readers to understand) and 4 dimensional space and objects to 3 dimensional eyes (since it's how we'd see it). Other dimensions make brief apparences as well (0-d and 1-d too, around the end of the book).
Pretty cool. I really recommend it, but if "thought experiments" aren't your thing you might not enjoy it as much as I did.
Hacker and the Ants is well worth a read and more conventional, too. Some VR parts of the plot might feel a little dated, though. (Note that I read the original and the link is for version 2.0)
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