Novel Mathematics

A few months ago, I reviewed the Oscar Winning Best Picture A Beautiful Mind and lamented the fact that movies about mathematics are rare. Thinking about this more, the reason there are no movies about mathematics is that the audience is simply too small and movie costs are too great.

This is not true of novels, however. Novels do not require a large investment to get published, and it does not matter how small an audience it is as long as there is an audience. So why not devote a page to novels about math, or novels in which mathematics play a large role?

I will mention four novels that fit the bill nicely, and will gladly list other suggestions sent to me. Hopefully, we can compile a reading list with helpful suggestions. Here then are four of my favorite mathematical novels (in order of their difficulty and accessibility):

1. The Man Who Counted by Malba Tahan - (amazon.com)
Malba Tahan is a pen name of a Brazilian mathematician who wrote a collection of stories set in 14th century Persia. It is about a poor traveler who just happens to be good at math, and how he uses these abilities to climb the social ladder. Written to teach simple appreciation of math, each chapter contains a fun math puzzle that has to be solved. Appropriate for all ages and all levels of mathematical know-how.

2. Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott - (amazon.com)
A classic sci-fi novel about A. Square, a two dimensional being who discovers the existence of a third dimension. This book has almost become required reading in High School, as it teaches higher dimensional mathematics better than any lecture could. A new annotated edition edited by writer Ian Stewart is now out in bookstores everywhere, a review of which can be found in the April 2002 Scientific American. Some exposure to planar geometry is needed to understand parts of the book.

3. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson - (amazon.com)
Between the bizarre title and the 900 page length, some may be initially turned off by this book. It is really three novels in one, all exploring the science of cryptography. Two of the stories are set during World War II, one from the perspective of a Japanese officer assigned to secure a supply of German gold in the Philippines, and one about a secret group assigned to keep the Germans from knowing that their Enigma code has been broken. The third story is set in present day, about a group of computer hackers who are creating a new international currency based on cryptography, which threatens to change the face of world economics. The three stories often cross paths, and the outcomes of each story are dependent on one another. Best appreciated by computer literate people who at least have a basic understanding of how cryptography works.

4. Permutation City by Greg Egan - (amazon.com) (Greg Egan's Home Page)
Australian author Greg Egan defines the term "speculative science fiction" with his various novels and stories set in worlds where what might be scientifically possible is possible. Set about 50 years into the future where technology exists to scan the human brain in such detail that the scanned brain can be simulated as a computer program. This creates the possibility of immortality for those rich enough to afford the computer cycles. A deeply philosophical satire about the creation of an artificial heaven and an artificial universe. Some knowledge of cellular automata is required to really appreciate the book.

Any other good suggestions? Write me at paul@mathmistakes.com and I'll include them. (I may even read some of them, since I am between books right now.)

For those too cheap to buy any of these books, or too lazy to get to the library, may I suggest some terrific "classic" mathematical short stories:

"And He Built A Crooked House" by Robert Heinlein. If you do not know what a tesseract is, there is one pictured at the top of this page.

"The Musgrave Ritual" by Arthur Conan Doyle where Sherlock Holmes uses trigonometry (actually basic geometry) to solve a 200 year old mystery.

"The Nine Billion Names of God" by Arthur C. Clarke

"Meno" by Plato (Jowett Translation) - A work of fiction written in 4th Century BC that uses math to prove a point about the acquisition of knowledge and virtue. It is also the source of the expression "Socratic Method".

Reader's Suggestions:

I am an avid reader of your monthly on-line column and have recommended many of your archives to several of my friends for various reasons. I was interestd in your recent column about Mathematical Novels and would like to add a suggestion or two that you may have or not have read. Cryptonomicon, for one I enjoyed throughly and I thought it was a great recommendation for this audience. Here are several you may want to consider, (In no particular order)

Fermat's Enigma Simon Singh. I imagine you have probably read this, pretty standard description of the history of the solution to Fermat's therom by Andrew Wiles

The Code Book, also by Simon Singh. This is an excellent book on both modern and ancient cryptography, and explains complex mathematical transpositions as cyphers, Enigma, and public key crypto in greatly accessible detail, a mathematical page-turner if there was one.

Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman. Not mathematical per se, but it certainly broaches the subject in terms of relativity, and is readable by the public-at-large, which makes it important.

And Lastly, is The Visual Display of Quantitative Data by Tufte. This book deals with the math most people are likely to encounter, statistics, and in particular misuse of statistical information, from the USA Today bar-graphs, to misinterpretation of O-ring failure in the Space Shuttle program. Probably my favorite mathematical book ever. The graph of the march of Napolean to and from Moscow is by some considered the best two-dimensional chart in history.

Thanks for the web site, and I appreciate your time.

Sincerely:

Matthew Champion

I forgot about Einstein's Dreams, despite the fact I have a copy sitting on my bookshelf. I remember that after reading it, my own dreams got a bit weird for a while. - Paul

Mustn't overlook these two classic anthologies of math in fiction and poetry (the first two such anthologies, if I'm not mistaken and I don't think I am): The Mathematical Magpie and Fantasia Mathematica, both edited by Clifton Fadiman.

Ron Miller

suggestion for Math book
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers
the story of Paul Erdös and the search for mathematical truth
by Paul Hoffman
Suggested by Bipwop

Further Links:

Mathematical Fiction - Lists 258 math related books, short stories, and other media.

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