(1941- ) Canadian mathematician and computer scientist whose sf novel, The Planiverse: Computer Contact with a Two-Dimensional World (1984), intriguingly updates Edwin A Abbott's Flatland (1884); its Flatland protagonist, Yndrd, attempts to penetrate from his world of Arde into an epiphanous "reality beyond reality", making contact as he does with a roundworld Computer programmed to simulate two-dimensional existence. The portrayal of two-dimensional life provided by Dewdney is a remarkably sustained Thought Experiment – despite some crudities in the actual writing of the book – and is an education in the understanding of Mathematics.
Dewdney is one of the later occupants of Martin Gardner's "Mathematical Games" slot in Scientific American: under Dewdney this was titled "Computer Recreations" and later "Mathematical Recreations". [JC/DRL]
Alexander Keewatin Dewdney
born London, Ontario: 5 August 1941
died
works
links
Previous versions of this entry