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Ask Slashdot: Mathematical Fiction?
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?)"
After all, 2+2=5
As I recall Cryptonomicon is well over 1000 pages long.
http://kasmana.people.cofc.edu/MATHFICT/
Have you seen "Fantasia Mathematica" and "The Mathematical Magpie", both edited by Clifton Fadiman? Lots of fun.
It's great mathematical fiction.
Try something by Greg Egan. His short story Glory (pdf) is online.
> Has any author managed to hit the same vein as Stephenson did?
Yes, he's called Neal Stephenson: Baroque Cycle is certainly not too short, and Anathem is beautifully mathematical.
flatland, a romance of many dimensions;
(http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~banchoff/Flatland/)
I found Douglas Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach" to be at least as engaging as any Stephenson-esque fiction I've ever read.
Well over a hundred years old and well ahead of it's time.
You may enjoy "Surreal Numbers: How Two Ex-Students Turned on to Pure Mathematics and Found Total Happiness. " Donald Knuth, 1974. Dixit wikipedia: "This book is a mathematical novelette, and is notable as one of the rare cases where a new mathematical idea was first presented in a work of fiction." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surreal_number)
Enjoy.
The Story of O by Pauline Reage is the fascinating account of the discovery of the number in ancient Mesopotamia.
...Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer winner -reads- like good fiction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine
In terms of "dramatizing math", I'd have to give it the nod even over Cryptonomicon.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
"A Subway Named Mobius", from 1950.
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
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
Over a hundred years old and well ahead of it's time.
Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture: A Novel of Mathematical Obsession http://www.amazon.com/Uncle-Petros-Goldbachs-Conjecture-Mathematical/dp/1582341281
How about the Romney/Ryan economic recovery "plan". It's gotta qualify as mathematical fiction.
I know you asked for math-reads, but you also asked for books like Stephenson. I just finished reading Ready Player One which I found to be a lot like Gibson and Stephenson, but better. (For example, RPO actually has an ending.) It has a good cyberpunk feel, and a realistic world. The way he described the dystopian near-future society reminded me of Stephenson's Diamond Age or Snow Crash, or Gibson's Virtual Light trilogy.
I thought you wanted fictional mathematics and was going to point you to arXiv.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
"Everything and more", by David Foster Wallace.
"Mechanizing Proof", by Donald Mackenzie.
"Dreaming in Code", by Scott Rosenberg.
Captured my attention when I was in high school and I re-read it every few years. It was the first SF that I had ever read that made mathematics a central part of its story.
Originally published in “The Year’s Best Science Fiction” in 1997
http://www.spadeofreason.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Spade-of-Reason.pdf
The story of Paul Erdos - It's Non-Fiction, but is one of my favorite mathematics oriented books.
Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Loved-Only-Numbers/dp/0786884061
I can't think of many mathematical fiction books apart from Flatland, which I assume you heard of, and is rather a thin tome anyway. I'd mostly suggest mathematical biographies as the way to go:
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers - The biography of Paul Erdös
The Music of the Primes - by Marcus du Sautoy
Genius - the biography of Richard Feynman - author James Gleick(?)
Chaos - a book on chaos theory and fractals, also by James Gleick
The Code Book - Simon Singh
Fermat's Last Theorem - Simon Singh
Gödel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter
A Beautiful Mind - The biography of John Nash
A New Kind of Science - Stephen Wolfram (bit of a doorstep, this one!)
Of these, the Music of the Primes is probably the one I most recommend because it details the historical approach towards the Riemann hypothesis. Over the centuries, many mathematicians have taken a crack at this problem - and made the occasional advance here and there - so it's a really good set of name checks for other mathematical biographies to track down. Gives you an overview of the entire field of mathematical endeavours over the centuries.
Finally, some other names to look out for - Alan Turing, Euler, Gauss and possibly some of the Greeks. Here's a passable list of 'greatest mathematicians' http://fabpedigree.com/james/greatmm.htm and I don't see much in that list to quibble over.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolos_Doxiadis
Not sure if it's what you are looking for but I read both the book and the comic and I enjoyd them and happily recommend it
Surreal Numbers: How Two Ex-Students Turned on to Pure Mathematics and Found Total Happiness
I would recomend Robert J. Sawyer's Calculating God or Factoring Humanity.
Also read "Anathem" by Stephenson. Mathematics plays a prominent role, although it's not as explicitly explored as it is in "Cryptonomicon". There are also passing references to things from general relativity (or, at least, a common formalism for tensor analysis) that you will not realize are there unless you've done some advanced undergraduate (or even graduate) Physics courses....
While not often directly mathematical, several of Jorge Luis Borges's short stories are interesting efforts on his part to grapple philosophically with many of the concepts of infinity: The Library of Babel most famously, but also great stories like The Book of Sand, The Aleph, and even Death and the Compass. They won't necessarily tickle you in the same way that Stephenson's work did, but they're still a fine jumping-off point into fascinating and deeply philosophical mathematics.
don't bother with anything by rudy rucker. except the hacker and the ants, or maybe white light if you're desperate.
anyway, someone mentioned greg egan; i'll second that in general. i don't know exactly what you mean by "mathematical" that would exclude 70s hard sf; greg egan might be too close to that or not. i don't know.
and although it barely qualifies, stanislaw lem's the investigation was very interesting to me; the description at wikipedia is accurate and as spoiler-free as it could be. actually, anything by stanislaw lem; his stories usually involve flights of bizarre logic, like a science-fiction lewis carroll.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Another great non-fiction is Inviting Disaster by James Chiles. It's an engineering book, not a math book, but I think it's still cool in the same vein. Every chapter recreates the events of a famous or influential disaster (nitroglycerin plants explode, buildings collapse, reactors melt down, etc.) and examines the engineering and human decisions that caused or exacerbated the problem. It's been a while since I read it, but IIRC it had great discussions on Three Mile Island, Challenger, and the 2000 Concorde crash.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
I can't believe nobody here has posted this yet...
One of the most underrated books ever written is Alice in Wonderland. No, it's not "just" an absurdist children's tale. The author, "Lewis Carroll," was really the mathematician and logician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson -- and some mathematicians claim that almost everything that happens in the book is an allegory of a mathematical theorem or algorithm of some kind. I'm not qualified to say, but it is a marvelous work, and some people have written mathematical footnotes for it.
For mathematical fiction, I've found nothing beats macroeconomics textbooks.
It's been a while since I've read it, and I don't remember how much math was in it, but the premise of the story is that a guy stumbles upon a cryptogram from Captain Kidd and works on deciphering it so he can find Kidd's legendary lost stash of treasure. And Poe's always fun to read.
What's wrong with imaginary numbers
Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll was kind of a fun read ... compares to Cryptonomicon the way The Hobbit compares to LOTR.
"Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea"
The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling - Historical Fiction about Babbage.
The Ghost from the Grand Banks by Arthur C Clark - extensive subplot around chaos and fractal theory.
You can also make an argument about the Foundation series from Asimov being math based. The entire series is predicated on using math to predict the future and Humanities actions.
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
He's great! Gets pretty wacky though. How about "Mathematicians in Love"?
Sorry, you lost me there. I read Snow Crash and it was a terrible book. Unless Cryptonomicon was at least 300 times better than Snow Crash, *anything* is better than reading Neal Stephenson, except perhaps all the fiction written by El Ron.
But, as other posters have mentioned, Martin Gardner is quite entertaining, and non-fiction, to boot!
Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics, by John Derbyshire
Very engaging account of the history of the Riemann Hypothesis, which is central to prime numbers especially but if proven is known to imply a great number of other results. Got into enough actual mathematics to be a great read for me.
The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved: How Mathematical Genius Discovered the Language of Symmetry, by Mario Livio
Recounts a lot of the history of the development of group theory and its application to proving that general quintic equations do not have algebraic solutions. Much lighter on the math and heavier on the human interest which was okay with me as there are some pretty colorful characters involved.
Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem, by Simon Singh
Covers the history surrounding Fermat's Last Theorem. I read it quite a while ago so I'm hazy on the details but it was written after the theorem was proven and I think devotes two chapters to the story of the proof. This is the story of the proof, not an explanation as such a thing would be way beyond the realm of popular literature.
-- Conserve binary trees; recycle your email. --
so it's quantum mathmetical fiction.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Check out Richard Powers.
Roger Penrose's books, "The Emperor's New clothes?" and I forget the second volume were good.
Hard going though. very dense (or I was...) I could only read a chapter at a time...
http://www.math.harvard.edu/~knill/novels/ My favorite from these nine math novels is Arturo Sangalli: Pythagorean Revenge.
The science fiction novel called Diaspora by Greg Egan had some interesting mathy sections. It wasn't rigorous, as I recall, but it certainly went into more "depth" than your average sci-fi story.
Religion is poison to rationality, and we lose sight of that at our own peril. -- Lurker2288
I guess I'm in the minority here, too, since I didn't like Cryptonomicum at all. It was OK but at this point I don't even remember what the plot was, never mind the characters.
I read a story the premise of which involved a computer that was designed to create/discover new mathematical theorems. At some point there was found to be an issue in some areas of research, and it was ultimately concluded that another similar effort was being made elsewhere in the universe, and the two efforts were at odds. Essentially the math became 'true' instantly/everywhere when it was first proven, but with different starting points/assumptions the two mathematical realms were in conflict. Don't remember the name/author, and I would love to know (assuming anyone recognizes it from my poor description) to reread and recommend.
Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl's "The Last Theorem" is interesting with a mathematician as the protagonist.
http://www.amazon.com/Mathenauts-Mathematical-Wonder-Rudy-Rucker/dp/0877958904/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351115690&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=mathnauts --amazon link if you want to buy it online, or go find it in your local bookstore.
It's an anthology of math themed stories. Like most anthologies, quality varies, but there are several quite good ones in there.
Martin Gardner wrote a number of awesome mathematical short stories. His "No-sided Professor," "The Devil and Simon Flagg" and others remain classics.
Also, Raymond Smullyan's puzzle books can be seen as mathematical/logical "journeys" and you're invited to tag along.
Look at: Mathenauts: Tales of Mathematical Wonder
Rudy Rucker (Editor)
Fantasia Mathmatica It was out of print forever but should be on the shelf of everyone who loves math or teaches math.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
http://climate.nasa.gov/
Have gnu, will travel.
You may like 50 shades of Grey, it has the number 50 on it.
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth by Paul Hoffman (Jul 15, 1998)
The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan by Robert Kanigel (Jun 1, 1992)
Any Martin Gardner book
A Beautiful Mind
The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition by Lewis Carroll, Martin Gardner and John Tenniel (Nov 17, 1999)
Proofs from THE BOOK by Martin Aigner, Günter M. Ziegler and Karl H. Hofmann (Oct 28, 2012)
. . . economic recovery will occur, but only in other dimensions that most folks won't be able to sense and experience.
And since Superstring is the Unified Theory, it applies to both political parties.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
"A Small Library of the Literature of Mathematics from A'h-mose' the Scribe to Albert Einstein, Presented with Commentaries and Notes by James R. Newman."
Four volumes. Reprinted in paperback by Dover. But the hardcover originals are worth tracking down. Put them on a shelf with "Mathematics and the Imagination." There is nothing to be found which will give you more pleasure.
If short stories are ok I would second the suggestion for Borges, and add that Ted Chiangs short stories have a similar philosophical and mathematical bent to them, especially "Division by Zero," which can be read online. If you'd rather read on dead-tree, it's included in a book of his short stories
You might also check out a short story called "The Axiom of Choice", not by Ted Chiang, but in a very similar vein. It's been read on one of my favorite podcastes (actually fantasy fiction oriented, mostly) Podcastle:
http://podcastle.org/2012/06/05/podcastle-211-the-axiom-of-choice/
Simon Singh's book "Fermat's Enigma" on Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
http://www.amazon.com/Fermats-Enigma-Greatest-Mathematical-Problem/dp/0385493622
Morris Kline' s book "Mathematics, the Loss of Certainty" on how the discovery of geometries where perpendicular lines intersect in more than one point (ellipsoidal and hyperbolic) led to the efforts to determine whether Mathematics as we know it is consistent. Leads up to Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem.
http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Loss-Certainty-Galaxy-Books/dp/0195030850/
DMCA - Chilling free speech since 1998.
Flatland, as was already-mentioned is excellent (and short).
The Practice Effect by David Brin fits the bill, I think, as well.
By John C Wright. New series, plenty of math.
Read the Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy for hilarious, ingenious, quantum physics-based fiction.
Here's an excellent source of mathematical fiction... Alex Kasman's curated list of mathematical fiction! 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.
i = sqrt(-1)
(Good non-fiction math-reads are also gratefully accepted. What have you got?)
The Romney/Ryan budget plan is a good, scary read, but it's pure fiction. :-)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
There's some quality stuff in Ted Chiang's "Stories of Your Life and Others"...
There is a web site dedicated to mathematical fiction - http://kasmana.people.cofc.edu/MATHFICT/default.html. I've found plenty of great novels here. You can search on Math Content Rating to get more or less math depending on your tastes. Includes plays and movies as well. I'm not affiliated with the site, just a fan...
A fabulous read about his life:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Loved_Only_Numbers
Cuckoo's Egg is good computer fiction you might enjoy.
For non-preachy hard sci-fi Charles Stress has some post singularity books that are pretty great.
He has a modern version of Flatland, and his other novels vary from sci-fi w/ math, to too much math not enough sci-fi :-P
Were that I say, pancakes?
The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
I enjoyed "The Sand Reckoner", Gillian Bradshaw's fictional account of Archimedes. (I also enjoyed the original "Sand Reckoner" by Archimedes, but that was not fiction.)
Gillian Bradshaw is a well regarded historical novelist, and there is mathematical content in the novel if you know what to look for. In the book Archimedes' father dies, and Archimedes distracts by working on his mathematics. The reader does not know what he is working on until he tells his sister "It's more than ten seventy-firsts and less than a seventh." Pi minus three, of course.
However, if you are familiar with his proof, the suggestion that he could work this out in a single evening suggests that this is a fantasy rather than a historical novel.
A good read, in either case.
The story "Division by Zero" by Ted Chiang. Can be found in the collection Stories of Your Life and Others (they're all great stories, actually).
The story "Luminous" by Greg Egan, from the collection of the same title. What happens when mathematicians discover that: (a) there is a flaw in the structure of mathematical truth; and (b) that mathematical truth can be altered by performing calculations around the flaw.
Someone has already collected a bunch of mathematical fiction here.
"The deep-fried Mars bar is a symptom of a wider crisis." -- Nutritionist Ann Ralph, on the Scottish diet
For non fiction reads I would recommend "Fermats Last Theorem", by Simon Singh. A very good read giving the history of the problem and the various people who attempted to solve it over the course of 370 years. There was a BBC TV documentary made by the same guy, which won a BAFTA. Oh- "the code book", also by Simon Singh is also a good read.
I would also add "Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities" and it's sequel "Hoard of Mathematical Treasures" by Professor Ian Stewart. book are books you can dip in and out of, and contain various bits of mathematical trivia and maths and logic puzzles, along with a few jokes.
http://kasmana.people.cofc.edu/MATHFICT/mfview.php?callnumber=mf52
I found the above list because I was searching for information on a story I read and enjoyed, "The Mathenauts". The basic idea is that it is possible to travel into a universe or dimension of pure math, and discover new mathematics by exploration. Some of the explorers don't come back; the chief danger is to lose yourself in the math and never return to our reality. You become imaginary, or something like that.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I'd really recommend "T Zero" By Italo Calvino- the stories are structurally and very cleverly based around constraints that involve biology, evolution, gamete mitosis, infinite series... Also "The Oulipo Compendium", which is sort of a deranged textbook for an entire set of constrained writing schemas, many of which are math-based.
Stephenson has another book, Anathem, that is quite good.
did anyone mention Flatland ?
Well, if you're looking for a romp through mathematics, how can we leave out the sad tale of Pretty Little Polynomial and Curly Pi?
When someone says, "Any fool can see
The story was good but I read it and thought, this is a book written for me. Not nerdface like The Big Bang Theory but stuff complicated enough that it would make most of my family angry to read.
Michael Crichton did this to a limited extent but not to this lovely level.
The description of how he deceives the screen scanning system while imprisoned would throw most people for a loop. I love it!
Encore, encore.
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
and
I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today!
I liked Anathem a lot. The housekeeper and the professor is also really good. Then we have the last theorem by Clarke and pohl which is strange but engaging. Some say the dispossessed counts, but I don't know. The difference Engine by Gibson and sterling is a must read. If you get a chance to see Proof it is well worth it.
Came here to also recommend The Housekeeper and the Professor. It reminded me why I used to like maths.
The Hut Six Story talks about math from the perspective of breaking the German Enigma encryption.
"Fermat's Last Theorem" by Amir D. Aczel (1996) , describes Andrew Wiles' seven year search for the famous mathematical problem. I've always been enchanted by Wiles' own description of the process: "Perhaps I can best describe my experience of doing mathematics in terms of a journey through a dark unexplored mansion. You enter the first room of the mansion and it's completely dark. You stumble around bumping into the furniture, but gradually you learn where each piece of furniture is. Finally, after six months or so, you find the light switch, you turn it on, and suddenly it's all illuminated. You can see exactly where you were. Then you move into the next room and spend another six months in the dark. So each of these breakthroughs, while sometimes they're momentary, sometimes over a period of a day or two, they are the culmination of—-and couldn't exist without—-the many months of stumbling around in the dark that precede them." It's always made me think of searching for a particularly obscure bug in someone else's badly written code :-)
If you have any interest in the history of science (though not mathematics specifically), this is a great yarn. Featuring cameos by John Locke, Robert Boyle, Samuel Morland and John Wallis.
If those names don't mean anything to you, then it may not be for you.
Charles Seife's Zero, The Biography of a Dangerous Idea chronicles the origin of the number zero. It's one of the most interesting math and history books I've ever read.
by Carl Sagan. While it doesn't focus on mathematics, it does play a part. Especially toward the end when the protaganist searches for patterns in pi.
Mathematical expressions and theorem proofs that summon the "Old Ones"
Oh yeah, full of geek cred as a hacker uses his skill to protect us from the unseen danger all around. I've been tearing through the Laundry books starting with Atrocity Archives and continuing to Jennifer Morgue and beyond. I hope these series never ends.
Short story collection.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
...I'm particularly thinking of White Light here, in which our hero travels, literally, to infinity and beyond. And it is just as screwed up and hallucinogenic as you might imagine.
problems.
But it's a hell of a good start.
Actually - taking all that deadwood money and putting it in the hands of people with real needs who will spend it will accelereate the economy like nobody's business.
1% job creators my ass.
ironic captcha: aggrieve
It's been a while since I read it, but I remember Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture being an enjoyable read.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Unfortunately, it's impossible to say *anything* about this story without spoiling it, so I'll just leave it as a bare recommendation.
Fearless Symmetry
by Ash and Gross
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Fearless-Symmetry/Avner-Ash/e/9780691138718
The Road to Reality : A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe
by Roger Penrose
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-road-to-reality-roger-penrose/1007259632?ean=9780679776314&itm=6&usri=the+road+to+reality
also by Penrose "the Emperor's New Mind"
FICTION:
TWISTOR
by John Cramer ( a working physicist)
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/twistor-john-cramer/1000099565?ean=9780380710270
Einstein's Bridge
by John Cramer
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/einsteins-bridge-john-cramer/1002889776?ean=9780380788316
Odd note, the CAPTCHA for this post was 'quantity'
I really liked "The Housekeeper and the Professor" by Yoko Ogawa. Maybe its not exactly what you were looking for since the math is pretty simple and is not the sole focus of the story, but the story itself is excellent and its hard not to read the book without being inspired by how beautiful mathematics is.
If you liked Cryptonomicon, you should definitely give Against the Day a look. One of the intertwined plots involves Kit Traverse, youngest son of Webb and brother of Frank, Reef and Lake, who studies mathematics at Yale (and studies with the physicist Willard Gibbs, whose work is preparing the way for 20th-century thermodynamics) and at Göttingen, and Yashmeen Halfcourt, who some think was modeled on the mathematician and academic Sofia Kovalevskaya.
Rudy Rucker had a great little booklet out called "Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension" that I would recommend, as well as his "Infinity and the Mind".
His fiction is all over the place...but if you want specifically math oriented, then try "The Sex Sphere". It is, literally, Flatland taken to the nth dimension! Lots of weird kinky pan-dimensional sex too. :-) Captain Jack would love this book! :-)
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
I highly recommend both A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines by Janna Levin, and Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman.
Madman is about Turing and Godel's lives (and the parallels between them) during the time of their most profound work, with a decent discussion of the philosophy and logic behind their discoveries. Dreams is a fun romp through Einstein's imagination as he toys with various theories of time while daydreaming at his job in the patent office.
Both are excellent reads and a great deal of fun.
under construction
Mathematicians in Love
Also:
Postsingular, Hylozoic
White Light
Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture tells a fictional story about real mathematics and real mathematicians.
Logicomix is an excellent graphic novel about mathematical logic.
A Certain Ambiguity uses real mathematics in a fictional quest for absolute truth.
Not quite what you're asking for, but there a whole range of comics to help vulgarise maths that are a great read. Look for the work of Ian Stewart. He was quite successful in France with French translations, but I'm not sure whether he galvanised much interest in the English speaking world. His famous series in French goes by the title of "les chroniques de Rose Polymath".
http://www.amazon.com/Ian-Stewart/e/B000APQ9NM/.
On a slightly different note, French astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Petit vulgarised a number of physics theories in an entertaining way. And what's more he has now provided free download of the scans of a lot of his comics: http://www.savoir-sans-frontieres.com/JPP/telechargeables/free_downloads.htm#english.
Or read the same in many other languages, take your pick: http://www.savoir-sans-frontieres.com/.
Sync by Steven H. Strogatz
he is a real mathematician who also writes textbooks. The topics he explores in Sync are covered in a formal way by his textbooks too and include
chaos and dynamical systems.
Some discrete math for you to think about disguised as a story.
Society use your Sciences
During my study I thoroughly enjoyed this leisurely paced introduction to Lie groups:
http://books.google.co.id/books/about/Representations_of_Compact_Lie_Groups.html?id=AfBzWL5bIIQC&redir_esc=y
Another novel in which analytical engines play a part.
Some of the best non-fiction I've read were by Simon Singh:
The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography
and
Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem
The Cryptonomicon (though published earlier), reads like a fictionalization of The Code Book (which I read before shortly before being introduced to Stephenson). The real-life characters found in Cryptonomicon feature in the Code Book, too. I consider these to be complementary books - if asked, I would not choose one over the other, they are orthogonal views of the same story.
Similarly, I read Godel, Escher, Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid - a mind-bending traipse through music, art, number theory and consciousness. My very next book (purely coincidentally) was Stephenson's Anathem, which almost reads as a cerebral fictional rebuttal of GEB. I read these over a year ago, yet I reflect on each of these at least weekly (though not at all weakly).
Having enjoyed The Code Book so much, I read Fermat's Enigma based on the name alone. A surprisingly gripping non-fiction tale of number theory.
since you seem to be French, i have to ask: did you intend the very negative connotations of the word "vulgarise"? don't take this the wrong way, it's just kind of funny and i'm genuinely confused because you seem to be mostly positive about the works you mention.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
2 + 2 = 5 for very large values of 2... now that's fiction for you
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Several of Rudy Rucker's novels (like White Light) are explicitly mathematical; all of them are written by a mathematician and are copacetic.
"Digital Fortress", by Dan Brown (cryptography)
"Andromeda Strain", Michael Crichton (exponential growth)
"Sphere", Michael Crichton (mathematical deductive reasoning)
"Contact", Carl Sagan (radio astronomy, SETI)
"Dune", Frank Herbert (mentats, no real math, but a really good read)
"E=mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation" by David Bodanis is not fiction, but a ripping good read. Aside from just the formula itself, it goes into the history of each symbol in the famous formula, but the interesting lives of the people who played a part in each symbol. Includes everything from the French Revolution to WWII!
It goes on to show all the cool & terrifying technologies that the formula led us to, and even to the end of our sun, and the death of the universe itself.
Sounds weird to say it but, a fun, fun read!
http://www.amazon.com/mc2-Biography-Worlds-Famous-Equation/dp/0425181642
ET Bell was an American mathematician and SF author whose couple of books Men of Mathematics and Development of Mathematics are considered quite remarkable.
http://www.amazon.ca/Surreal-Numbers-Donald-E-Knuth/dp/0201038129/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351145748&sr=8-1
If we drop the fiction requirement but still avoid math proper, there are classics like...
"A Mathematicians Apology" by G.H. Hardy is The description of what it is to be a modern mathematician. Essential reading for the professional.
"Chaos: Making a New Science" by James Gleick popularized the field of chaos, now folded into analysis.
"The Fractal Geometry of Nature" by B. Mandelbrot is worth it for the images, and popularized fractal geometry.
"Godel, Escher, Bach" by D. Hofstadter has been mentioned above, but is an extraordinary exploration of logic and well-deserves its awards.
I consider "Where Mathematics Comes From" by G. Lakoff and R. Nunez to rank amoung these. It applies linguistic cognitive neuroscience methods to explore the neurological basis of mathematics.
For math proper, a couple favorites:
"The Heritage of Thales" by Anglin and Lambek is part history and part math textbook, presenting classic results from different periods of history in their context.
"A Wavelet Tour of signal processing" by Stephane Mallat is the best book on wavelets I've seen, clearly written and full of powerful ideas which may take centuries to unfold.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
Somewhat interesting is "Mother Wode." This is a mystery, set a few years into the future, in which the main characters are a woman computer scientist, a computer science PhD candidate, and an Eastern European-type hacker. The characters and the math/CS are believeable. And, yes, there's a little sex to spice things up (probably should be listed as the "unbelieveable" part. Math, Computer Science and sex - LOL!).
Eric Temple Bell and his works esp. Men of Mathematics
I don't know about mathematical fiction - I read Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter's 'Long Earth' book recently and found it very intelligent and scientifically intriguing. I think the trick of a good story is to present your ideas credibly, rather than being scientifically rigorous; but in my view they manage to do both. A very good book.
But my favourite of all times is still Paul Halmos' seductively simple 'Naive Set Theory'. A very good read, and in places very deep.
For kids: http://www.murderousmaths.co.uk/books/books.htm
Surreal Number by Donald Knuth Nearly 30 years ago, John Horton Conway introduced a new way to construct numbers. Donald E. Knuth, in appreciation of this revolutionary system, took a week off from work on The Art of Computer Programming to write an introduction to Conway's method. Never content with the ordinary, Knuth wrote this introduction as a work of fiction--a novelette. If not a steamy romance, the book nonetheless shows how a young couple turned on to pure mathematics and found total happiness. The book's primary aim, Knuth explains in a postscript, is not so much to teach Conway's theory as "to teach how one might go about developing such a theory." He continues: "Therefore, as the two characters in this book gradually explore and build up Conway's number system, I have recorded their false starts and frustrations as well as their good ideas. I wanted to give a reasonably faithful portrayal of the important principles, techniques, joys, passions, and philosophy of mathematics, so I wrote the story as I was actually doing the research myself."...It is an astonishing feat of legerdemain. An empty hat rests on a table made of a few axioms of standard set theory.Conway waves two simple rules in the air, then reaches into almost nothing and pulls out an infinitely rich tapestry of numbers that form a real and closed field. Every real number is surrounded by a host of new numbers that lie closer to it than any other "real" value does. from http://www.amazon.com/Surreal-Numbers-Donald-Knuth/dp/0201038129
Simon Singh: "Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem"
great non-fiction documentary about the 200 year quest to proof an eccentric mathematician's last unproofen theorem
In the same spirit as Cryptonomicon, I'd suggest:
- Thomas Pynchon: Against the Day, Gravity's Rainbow ... if you were forced to read The Crying of Lot 49 in school, give Pynchon another chance, he gets much better.
- Anything by David Foster Wallace. Although not all his work is not directly mathematical, his interest in math influences the way he writes. Infinite Jest is a fabulous read.
- Georges Perec: Life, A User's Manual. The Oulipo movement (of which Perec's a member) let algorithms directly influence the text (as well crop up in their stories). Perec is good, Calvino, Queneau, and Mathews are also Oulipo members readily available in English.
- Paul Verhaeghen: Omega Minor ... more science than math, still, a very engaging read.
(And although not mathematical at all, if you liked Crypto, you'd probably like Eco's Foucault's Pendulum.)
The curious incident of the Dog in the Night time by Mark Haddon. It may be a little lightweight, but there's some entertaining maths in there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Counted
Short collection of "math parables", good for some kids too
and far too often just a puppet-theatre for an author's philosophical rant.
That pretty much is the definition of art.
The Number Devil. Children's book on mathematics, it's brilliant. It explains maths (up to choose operations, if I remember correctly) in a way that will not frighten young children.
Popularize is the meaning the GP probably intended (I hope!).
Wikipedia has Category:Mathematics fiction books. Of those Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture, is a great read, the life of a fictional mathematician, Logicomix a graphics novel is a good as well telling the story of Cantor and other logicians.
There are four sorts of people in the world: fools, lunatics, idiots and morons. - Umberto Eco, Foucaut's pendulum.
This is a near-miss in the math nonfiction category, "One Jump Ahead" by Jonathan Schaeffer is the story of the guy who solved the game of checkers. I haven't read the book, but there's a podcast on the "relatively prime" series, called "Chinook", here.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with either the Relatively Prime podcast series, or the Chinook project.
2*3*3*3*3*11*251
This is a great anthology edited by Rudy Rucker. Thoroughly recommendable and enjoyable. ISBN: 0877958904
Just punch it in Amazon.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Since nobody seems to have listed it yet. Mathenauts is a collection of SciFi-ish stories in which the math guy is the hero.
Amazon has it.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I have an undergraduate degree in mathematics, but that was 18 years ago...
If you are a programmer and want to have fun learning about math you might look at Project Euler. http://projecteuler.net/
Not a book I know. But, very fun and educational.
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
See the website to get an idea if this can be of interest to you...
And here is my own review (from anobii):
I love the smell of simplex in the morning...
Red Plenty is pretty difficult to categorize. As the author explains, this is about history, but at the same time most of the characters are either fictional, or are shown thinking and saying things that, while plausible and based on actual historical recordings, have been made up by the author.
And even most importantly, the various characters, some recurring, some briefly sketched never to return in the narrative, are just different ways to talk about the real "hero" of the story. Except that this hero is not character, either real or fictional. The main character, you see, is an Idea.
The idea that by using maths (especially Linear Programming) first, and applying computers later, you can run a centralized, planned economy and make it grow at amazing rate till it takes you, and all your citizens, to a sort of materialistic utopia.
Of course, we all know that history took a different turn, but up to the 80s the Soviet government really tried, and (for an admittedly shorter time) believed that this was possible, and that the "red plenty" of the title would really benefit the whole Soviet Union, and show the USA that Capitalism was inherently less efficient.
We see the whole dream unfold (and sadly turn into a nightmare) through the eyes of low-level citizen, Party members, scientists, criminals.
I am amazed by the technical tour de force that this book represents: it explains very complex (and probably dull and boring) events and theories in a clear and entertaining way - I do have a bit of experience with the specifics regarding the math theory used in here, but I was very ignorant in terms of Marxism, Russian history, Economy, how people gets cancer and a slew of other issues... so if have been entertained (and educated) about the latter themes, I suppose I can say that Marxism experts who don't don't know much about Cantor will find the book equally entertaining, and interesting.
Please understand that the book is a gripping read even if you really don't care about any of this. I can't really think of another example of a book that entertains so much while explaining so well... but I really hope to find another two or three in the future.
A man in modern times tries to find the works of his WWII cryptographer grandfather to help him create a data haven.
A friend of mine recently tried to read it and hated it, called it a bad Clancy novel, which tells me he didn't get it, because it's WAY too comic to be compared to Clancy.
Keith Devlin's books "The Math Gene" and "The Millennium Problems" were both fascinating.
A book called "Prime Obsession" about the Riemann Hypothesis was also a good read.
The play "Proof" by David Auburn
Andrew Crumey has a research background in theoretical physics, and his books are based around a logical formalist approach that appeals to a mathematicians mindset. They are also funny, touching, and human. Try: Music in a Foreign Language Pfitz D’Alembert’s Principle Mr Mee Mobius Dick
You'll want to read "White Light" by Rudy Rucker. It's an exploration of infinities the way "Flatland" is an exploration of dimensions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Light_(novel)
Check out James Gleik's Chaos.
It's nonfiction but still might scratch the same itch. It's told from a storyteller's point of view discussing the personalities and early discoveries in the field, the stubborn resistance encountered, all that. It's a good story as well as being a good book about math.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I"m Rudy Rucker, and I'll step forward here with a few pointers to my work. My novels WHITE LIGHT, SPACELAND, and MATHEMATICIANS IN LOVE are math SF but with a literary flavor akin to Stephenson's. My COMPLETE STORIES can be found on a free web page online, just Google for it. Of these stories, "A New Golden Age," "Pi in the Sky," "Ms. Found in a Copy of Flatland," "As Above, So Below," "The Square Root of Pythagoras," "2+2=5," and "Jack and the Aktuals" are all quite mathematical, although some of them are little-known. Enjoy.
By Arthur C. Clarke. It is not SF but it is great.
If I disagree with you it's because you are wrong.
Whatever you do, don't read Dan Brown's Digital Fortress.
Even a BASIC understanding of cryptography (such as ANY level of understanding of checksums) will open up so many plot holes that you won't enjoy it, no matter how much you suspend your disbelief.
Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity by David Foster Wallace. Recent re-issue edition has an introduction by Neal Stephenson.
Writing styles have changed dramatically over time. Just as the 70s stuff was very different from the 30s/40s stuff, the 80s/90s and now the 00s/10s also feel very differently.
Most current scifi is much more character driven, and pays more attention to the second order effects of plot actions than the stuff you are thinking about.
The French have a great tradition of comic books together with the Belgian school which brought us masterpieces like Tintin. Being a son to a German intellectual, American comics were a no-no and I grew up with the European comics. When I was older and in high school I discovered an interesting series of comic books in the math section of my father's book shelves that I had not seen before which are also from France. The comics are done by the French scientist Jean Pierre Petit. The books are available for free as PDFs and have been translated to various languages. Most of them are more concerned with Physics but the first link will bring you immediately to the one I found and enjoyed. It is about topology and, if I recall correctly, starts out on a weirdly shaped planet which resembles a Moebius strip. http://www.savoir-sans-frontieres.com/JPP/telechargeables/English/Topo_the_world_eng.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Higgins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Pierre_Petit#Popular_science It looks like he has also more traditional book about the universe. I haven't read it though. http://www.savoir-sans-frontieres.com/JPP/telechargeables/English/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Universe.pdf
David Zendell's Neverness. Horrible philosophy, but mathy and lots of fun.
Yes, sorry about the sloppy translation. "vulgariser" in French is actually positive. And does correspond to popularise.
Oops, I thought I had replied to this already.
Of course I mean Popularise.
Sorry for the sloppy translation from French: In French "vulgariser" has positive connotations and is the direct equivalent of Popularise.