a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)
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Like others in her culture, Priestess Kayla works on mathematical proofs and hopes to receive a message from her creator, the Supreme Mathematician :
However, when she finally gets a seemingly mystical communication, in a voice speaking through her young student, it is not quite what she had expected:
Spoiler Alert: If you want to read (or listen to) the rest of this story without further spoilers, click here now. As you might be able to guess, Kayla is told that she is part of a computer simulation which has been created to see whether the sims can be motivated to discover important new mathematical results through their religious beliefs. The program is in danger of being shut down due to a lack of sufficient progress, and Kayla's work on the Four Color Theorem is the inhabitants' last chance to avoid disappearing forever. The author, a philosophy professor at Saint Louis University, had this to say about the motivation for writing it:
The story was published online both in written and podcast form at escapepod.org. |
More information about this work can be found at escapepod.org. |
(Note: This is just one work of mathematical fiction from the list. To see the entire list or to see more works of mathematical fiction, return to the Homepage.) |
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Exciting News: The total number of works of mathematical fiction listed in this database recently reached a milestone. The 1,500th entry is The Man of Forty Crowns by Voltaire. Thanks to Vijay Fafat for writing the summary of that work (and so many others). I am also grateful to everyone who has contributed to this website. Heck, I'm grateful to everyone who visited the site. Thank you!
(Maintained by Alex Kasman, College of Charleston)