Ask Slashdot: Mathematical Fiction? 278
An anonymous reader writes "Neal Stephenson's 1999 Cryptonomicon was a great yarn. It was also a thoroughly enjoyable (and too short) romp through some mathematics. Where can I find more of that? I should say that I don't want SF — at least none of the classic SF I read voraciously in the 70s; it's just not the same thing, and far too often just a puppet-theatre for an author's philosophical rant. Has any author managed to hit the same vein as Stephenson did? (Good non-fiction math-reads are also gratefully accepted. What have you got?)"
Tons of math fiction (Score:5, Informative)
http://kasmana.people.cofc.edu/MATHFICT/
Greg Egan (Score:5, Informative)
flatland (Score:5, Informative)
flatland, a romance of many dimensions;
(http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~banchoff/Flatland/)
Flatland: A Romance Of Many Dimensions (Score:2, Informative)
Well over a hundred years old and well ahead of it's time.
Not fiction but... (Score:4, Informative)
...Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer winner -reads- like good fiction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine [wikipedia.org]
In terms of "dramatizing math", I'd have to give it the nod even over Cryptonomicon.
on the non-fiction side (Score:5, Informative)
Godel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas Hofsteder
The Mind's I, co-edited by Douglas Hofsteder and Daniel Dennett
One, Two, Three... Infinity by George Gamow
Flatland, by Edwin Abbott Abbott (okay, this one is fiction)
anything by Martin Gardner
Re:Greg Egan (Score:5, Informative)
Egan's latest, "Clockwork Rocket", is probably his most mathy work to date. It takes place in a different universe (dubbed "Orthogonal") with its own distinct physics: the speed of light is different for different colors; gravity is an inverse-linear force as opposed to inverse-square; and don't even ask what's going on at the subatomic level (are there even atoms in this universe? It's not quite clear this early in the trilogy...)
Anyway, the book's got diagrams and everything, so if math and physics are your thing, you'll have lots of fun with this one.
Re:Trying to remember (Score:3, Informative)
That would be "Luminous", by... hey, Greg Egan again. Good story, if kind of short.
If you want to stick in that general direction of things, BTW, the short story collection Dark Integers and Other Stories has that plus four other more or less loosely-related (I believe only one actually qualifies as a sequel to Luminous) stories. Probably your best bet for sticking to math-related fiction.
Funny you should ask... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's an excellent source of mathematical fiction... Alex Kasman's curated list of mathematical fiction [cofc.edu]! I highly recommend it.
Also, a story I discovered through this list, which was truly spectacular: Ted Chiang's "Division by Zero". Freely available here [fantasticmetropolis.com].
Re:The greatest one of all (Score:4, Informative)
Re:flatland (Score:4, Informative)
flatland, a romance of many dimensions;
(http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~banchoff/Flatland/)
Yes, recommended. I enjoyed it, although one has to look past the misogyny in its pages. (It was written in 1884.)
I also recommend the 1965 novel Sphereland [wikipedia.org] for those who would enjoy a sequel with a more non-Euclidian treatment.
Re:Greg Egan (Score:4, Informative)
I second Greg Egan. For a taste, here's a free short story. [asimovs.com]