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1963 (1993) |
 | Alan Moore |
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A six-issue series, one of the best of the retro comics out
there. this is Moore's ingenious pastiche of Marvel comics in
the critical (for Marvel and for the world) year 1963. Strange
things... (more) |
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And He Built a Crooked House (1940) |
 | Robert A. Heinlein |
|
A clever architect designs a house in the shape of the shadow of a
tesseract, but it collapses (through
the 4th dimension) when an earthquake shakes it into a more stable form (which takes up very... (more) |
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The Appendix and the Spectacles (1928) |
|
| Miles J. Breuer (M.D.) |
|
There sometimes seems to be an unlimited supply of stories based on
the idea that we may be unaware of extra dimensions around us (just
like the inhabitants of Flatland). But, each
one has its own special features. Here we see it from a medical
perspective: what are the implications for surgery and malpractice?
Appears in Mathematical Magpie. (more) |
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Blinding Shadows (1934) |
|
| Donald Wandrei |
|
Story of a mathematics professor who theorizes that 4-dimensional objects should be casting 3-dimensional shadows and such shadows should be viewable by specially made mirrors. Dutifully, element number... (more) |
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The Book of Worlds (1929) |
|
| Miles J. Breuer |
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Another story of 4-D from Miles Breuer, this time with Prof. Cosgrave who builds a "hyper-stereoscope" that can combine 3-dimensional views ("geometrical stereograms") from different angles into a 4-D... (more) |
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The Boy Who Reversed Himself (1986) |
|
| William Sleator |
|
[William Sleator's The Boy Who
Reversed Himself is] a book catering to a preteen or early teen
audience about three high school students' adventures in 4-dimensional (and
higher) space. It includes... (more) |
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The Captured Cross-Section (1929) |
|
| Miles J. Breuer (M.D.) |
|
Another "extra dimensions" story, with the twist of our hero having to save his fiance (also a mathematician) from terrifying dangers. There is some nonsense at the beginning about rotations and a count of variables/equations that probably had its basis in a reasonable linear algebra class but just comes out sounding kind of silly here. (more) |
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Cascade Point (1983) |
|
| Timothy Zahn |
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"Cascade Point" by Timothy Zahn (1983, won the 1984 Hugo award) contains
fictionalized mathematical analysis of higher-order dimensions of
space/time.
The novel concerns future space travel whereby... (more) |
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The Cube Root of Conquest (1948) |
|
| Rog Phillips |
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An evil dictator's plan to destroy and conquer the world is based on the
work of one of his scientists, which allows travel into complex components
of time. In order to do this, one is required to solve... (more) |
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The Dangerous Dimension (1938) |
|
| L. Ron Hubbard |
|
"The Dangerous Dimension" is L. Ron Hubbard's first science
fiction story, written at editor F Orlin Tremaine's request
for something light, easy-reading, and humorous. In the
story, Professor Henry... (more) |
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Dante Dreams (1998) |
|
| Stephen Baxter |
|
There is an interpretation of Dante's "Divine Comedy" as a mystical description of the universe as a hypersphere (see "Dante and the 3-sphere"
American Journal of Physics -- December 1979 -- Volume... (more) |
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Distances (2008) |
|
| Vandana Singh |
|
Most members of Anasunya's species have "a gift". Since she has a gift of mathematics, she leaves her aquatic home and begins working at the
Temple of Mathematical Arts. She has a gift that allows... (more) |
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The Dreams in the Witch-House (1933) |
|
| H.P. Lovecraft |
|
In this story, Walter Gilman, a mathematics graduate student at Miskatonic
University
in Arkham, Mass, rents a room in the famed haunted "Witch House" of Keziah
Mason,
a witch who legend says escaped... (more) |
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Eifelheim (2006) |
|
| Michael Flynn |
|
In this award winning science fiction novel, Tom and Sharon have a lot in common. They share an apartment, both use sophisticated mathematics in their research, and both become completely obsessed with... (more) |
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The Eighth Room (1989) |
|
| Stephen Baxter |
|
The story forms part of the Xeelee-sequence of stories and novels. In far distant future, the Xeelee decide to lock away the human race in a world hidden in hyperspace (as the pale, atavistic remnants... (more) |
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The Einstein See-Saw (1932) |
|
| Miles J. Breuer |
|
This is another of the hyperspace stories by Miles Breuer. This time, a mathematical physicist discovers that mattter can be tossed around in and out of space(-time) [see his papers, "A Preliminary Report... (more) |
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The End of Mr. Y (2006) |
|
| Scarlett Thomas |
|
After her thesis advisor disappears, a graduate students studying "thought experiments" in science and in fiction discovers a copy of the rare (and supposedly cursed) book "The End of Mr. Y". Following... (more) |
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An Episode of Flatland (1907) |
|
| Charles H. Hinton |
|
Hinton, whose biography is a
little too weird for me to believe and whose essays on the fourth dimension
(see for example A New
Era of Thought) leave me wondering how much he really believed that the
fourth... (more) |
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Factoring Humanity (1998) |
|
| Robert J. Sawyer |
|
There is certainly a lot of deep mathematics discussed in this `first
contact' novel, as well as a good deal of controversial physics and
psychology. Still, in the end, I did not find it especially
satisfying.... (more) |
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The Fifth-Dimension Catapult (1931) |
|
| Murray Leinster |
|
This short novel, originally published in the January 1931 ASTOUNDING,
and republished by Damon Knight in SCIENCE FICTION OF THE 30'S (1975),
involves a mathematical physicist whose theories get applied... (more) |
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Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884) |
|
| Edwin Abbott Abbott |
|
This is the classic example of mathematical fiction in which
the author helps us to think about the meaning of "dimension" through
fictional example: a visit to a world with only two spatial
dimensions.... (more) |
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Flatterland: like Flatland, only more so (2001) |
|
| Ian Stewart |
|
In this "sequel" to Flatland, popular
mathematics writer Ian Stewart lets us accompany the granddaugther of the
original "A. Square" who starred in original classic, as she learns about
fractal dimensions,... (more) |
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The Fourth-Dimensional Demonstrator (1935) |
|
| Murray Leinster |
|
Uses the fourth dimension as geewhiz terminology to explain
a matter duplicator/unduplicator. Includes a tesseract.
But if you ignore the story's explanation involving time as
... (more) |
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The Gate of the Flying Knives (1979) |
|
| Poul Anderson |
|
For his contribution to the first "Thieves' World" collection, Poul Anderson contributed a fantasy story about an illustrated scroll which forms a gateway between dimensions.
As the story progresses,... (more) |
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The Geometry of Narrative (1983) |
|
| Hilbert Schenck |
|
This story begins with a character who is a graduate student of English proposing to his professor a new geometric approach to literary analysis. As he points out, this has been used to some limited degree... (more) |
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The Gostak and the Doshes (1930) |
|
| Miles J. Breuer (M.D.) |
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In this classic science fiction story, a mathematical physicist convinces his friend to try to travel into another dimension by merely altering the way he thinks about things. The friend finds himself... (more) |
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Hidden in Glass (1931) |
|
| Paul Ernst |
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A murder mystery involving a mathematical physicist. One Professor Brainard, who is claimed to have mastered "the secret of the fourth dimension" (haven't they all in the pulps?), has a serious professional... (more) |
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The Ifth of Oofth (1957) |
|
| Walter Trevis |
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[This] is a short, zany, tall-tale reminiscent of Heinlein's "And He Built A Crooked House". Someone ends up making a 3-dimensional, unfolded projection of a 5-dimensional hypercube, a Penteract. The... (more) |
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The Image in the Mirror (1933) |
|
| Dorothy Leigh Sayers |
|
Lord Peter Wimsey, while staying at an inn, finds a stranger is
completely rapt in reading and rereading from a book of Wimsey's.
It turns out to be H G Wells' story of a man inverted via the
fourth... (more) |
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In Fading Suns and Dying Moons (2003) |
|
| John Varley |
|
There is an explicit reference not only to mathematics, but to mathematical fiction in this scary short story. When strange creatures with an unusual interest in butterflies begin appearing on the Earth, it takes a mathematician and familiarity with Abbott's Flatland to understanding what is going on. (more) |
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The Infinitive of Go (1980) |
|
| John Brunner |
|
John Brunner's novel, "The Infinitive of Go" is a story about teleporting devices based on a "posting" principle affecting living objects in the process of "posting" - the author describes it in terms... (more) |
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Inside Out (1987) |
|
| Rudy Rucker |
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The story itself is quite disturbing IMO but has the usual zaniness of his other writings. Features quarks as "hypertoroidal vortex rings/loops of superstring", a "cumberquark", "hypertorii with fuzzy... (more) |
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It was the Monster from the Fourth Dimension (1951) |
|
| Al Feldstein |
|
I found a story from a Weird Science issue of 1951 (i believe it's # 7) titled It Was the Monster From the Fourth Dimension. It's written and drawn by Al Feldstein.
It is about a farmer whose farm... (more) |
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The Kingdom of Ohio (2009) |
|
| Matthew Flaming |
|
Cheri-Anne Toledo, the daughter of the King of Ohio, uses her mathematical skills (and the assistance of Nikola Tesla) to build a device that is supposed to be able transport people instantaneously from... (more) |
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Left or Right (1951) |
|
| Martin Gardner |
|
Originally published in Esquire magazine in 1951, this story
about a space ship "flipping" through the fourth dimension has rarely
been seen because Gardner later worried that it was physically inaccurate.... (more) |
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The Magic Staircase (1946) |
|
| Nelson Slade Bond |
|
A Mathematics professor develops a theory of "intra-dimensional" spaces, hypothesizing that the vast, empty spaces in atoms form a parallel dimension in which alternative histories of "what might have... (more) |
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Math Takes a Holiday (2001) |
|
| Paul Di Filippo |
|
Saint Hubert and Saint Barbara, the two patron saints of mathematics,
pay a visit to a devout Catholic mathematics professor who has been
praying for a mathematical miracle to silence his mockers.... (more) |
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The Mathematics of Magic (1940) |
|
| L. Sprague de Camp / Fletcher Pratt |
|
The "Enchanter Stories" by de Camp and Pratt are a very popular series of SF/fantasy stories whose protagonist, Harold Shea, is able to travel to other universes using symbolic logic. "The Mathematics... (more) |
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Message Found in a Copy of Flatland (1983) |
|
| Rudy Rucker |
|
This is the story that answers the age old question: "What if Flatland was in the basement of a Pakistani restaurant in London?".
The answer is scarier than you might think, especially when you
realize... (more) |
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The Monopole Affair (2003) |
|
| Ken Wharton |
|
This short story in the May 2003 issue of Analog by physicist
Wharton includes references to the role of higher dimensions in string
theory.
References to string theory, but much more about physics than math (which gets a passing mention).
(more) |
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Necroscope (Series) (1992) |
|
| Brian Lumley |
|
Harry Keogh is a "necroscope" who can communicate with the dead. So, when omens suggest that the Möbius strip and space-time are going to be relevant to his plans in the near future, he goes straight... (more) |
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The New Reality (1950) |
|
| Charles Leonard Harness |
|
The theme of this story concerns the idea that observation
determines reality, and takes it to a more profound level than
is usual in quantum mechanics. Along the way, the history of
π and of four-dimensionality are discussed.
First appeared in
THRILLING WONDER STORIES (1950),
reprinted in several anthologies,
including the author's THE ROSE.
(more) |
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The Next Dimension (1947) |
|
| Vladimir Karapetoff |
|
"A Mathematical Play in Five Dialogs". Once again, we are treated to the
Flatland notion of two-dimensional creatures
pondering a "hypothetical" three dimensional existence. Many of the usual
concerns... (more) |
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Our Feynman Who Art in Heaven... (2007) |
|
| Paul Di Filippo |
|
A religious cult based on the Standard Model (of high energy physics)
has its headquarters in a tesseract.
This story, which is certainly more physical than mathematical, appears in the "Plumage from Pegasus" column in the February 2007 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction and is available for free at their website.
(more) |
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Out of the Sun: A Novel (1996) |
|
| Robert Goddard |
|
Harry Barnett (first introduced in the novel Into the
Blue) investigates the circumstances that lead to
his son's accident. The son, 33 year old math genius, lies in a coma
and the accident is somehow... (more) |
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The Phantom of Kansas (1976) |
|
| John Varley |
|
A sublunar meteorological artist wakens from her memory
recording to learn that a serial killer has been murdering
her repeatedly, and is presumably still... (more) |
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The Pikestaffe Case (1924) |
|
| Algernon Blackwood |
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This quite unsatisfying yarn hangs its hat on the old idea of finding a way into a mirror to discover a new reality. The author waves his hands quite a bit to build an aura of mystery (by appealing... (more) |
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Plane People (1933) |
|
| Wallace West |
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A space-operatic story which implements Edwin Abbott's world of Flatland. A perfectly flat comet strikes earth at a glancing angle and sheers off a very small part, including a few people, who discover... (more) |
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The Plattner Story (1896) |
|
| Herbert George Wells |
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Gottfrieb Plattner disappears after an explosion for nine days.
Upon return, he recounts a strange tale of a parallel world.
More mathematically interesting, he discovers that he is now
left-handed,... (more) |
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Shell (1987) |
|
| Stephen Baxter |
|
Humanity, trapped and quarantined by the Xeelee in hyperspace (see "Stephen Baxter - The Eighth Room"), live on a spherical world apparently surrounded by a huge shell. The Shell harbors life and a group... (more) |
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Skylark of Valeron (1934) |
|
| E. E. Doc Smith |
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At first I was completely confused while reading this novel, until I read it through my pulp-fiction-of-the-thirties lens. Then it became fun and hilarious. Scientists are unemotional and ruthless;... (more) |
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Space Bender (1928) |
|
| Edward Rementer |
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This is another story which uses the convenient device of the fourth dimension for rapid spatial transport. This time, Prof. Jason Livermore is the one who disappears entirely from the face of the earth... (more) |
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Spaceland (2002) |
|
| Rudy Rucker |
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Yet another Flatland "sequel" in which silicon valley genius Joe Cube (an obvious reference to characters A. Square and A. Cube in Abbott's original) gets caught up in a war between four-dimensional beings... (more) |
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Spacetime Donuts (1981) |
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| Rudy Rucker |
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The story is set in a chaotic setting (it's a Rucker novel!) of an all-providing-but-oppressive society. The society is controlled in large parts by a supercomputer, PhizWhiz, and its political masters.... (more) |
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Star, Bright (1952) |
|
| Mark Clifton |
|
How would you feel if your daughter could make deep mathematical
discoveries, even when she was a toddler? If you were the parent of
little Star in this story, you'd feel a combination of pride and... (more) |
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Surfing through Hyperspace (2001) |
|
| Clifford Pickover |
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FBI agents investigate the disappearance of people abducted into the fourth dimension. Along the way, the agents learn about degrees of freedom, quaternions, nonorientable surfaces, mathematics of hyperspheres, and numerous other mathematics relating to higher spatial geometries.
(more) |
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Sword Game (1968) |
|
| H.H. Hollis |
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A topologist manages to create a time-smeared tesseract whose interior moves extremely slowly through time (from our perspecctive) while the exterior moves at the normal pace. He uses the tesseract to... (more) |
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Tangents (1986) |
|
| Greg Bear |
|
There are far too many mathematical stories about finding a way to
travel into "other dimensions". Still, this one is one of my
favorites. Not only do we see a clever approach to this "old"
storyline,... (more) |
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Technical Error (1946) |
|
| Arthur C. Clarke |
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During the last phases of construction, a huge supercooled superconducting generator is accidentally given a surge of current. At that moment, an engineer is at the center of its field and is somehow... (more) |
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Threshold (2006) |
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| Bragi F. Schut/ Brannon Braga / David S. Goyer / Dan O'Shannon |
|
This science fiction TV series featured a sarcastic dwarf mathematician character. According to Mathematics Goes to the Movies, mathematical highlights included a 4-dimensional alien object intersecting our world in the first episode, references to "isomorphic group therapy [sic]", "monotonic null sequences" and "quadratic reciprocity" in the second, and a strange statistical study in the 11th.
(more) |
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Through the Gates of the Silver Key (1934) |
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| H.P. Lovecraft / E. Hoffmann Price |
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"We read of the fantastic travels of the dreamer and mystic Randolph Carter as he
arrives at the Ultimate Gate separating the parallel dimensions and alternate
realities
of the Universe. The Gate... (more) |
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Tiger by the Tail (1951) |
|
| A.G. Nourse |
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A pocketbook contains a gateway to another universe, and a group of unlikely heroes tries to save ours from the aliens there by reaching in and grabbing it.
This is a cute short story, with a not-particularly-sound... (more) |
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The Time Machine (1895) |
|
| Herbert George Wells |
|
This famous early science fiction novel opens with a clever (and, if you
think ahead to the role of Minkowski Space in special relativity,
prophetic) lecture on "the fourth dimension". Of course, discussions... (more) |
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Vanishing Point (1959) |
|
| C.C. Beck |
|
The short story is another take on the true nature of reality and one man's quest to unmask it. It is more an idea piece than a full-fledged development. An artist, Carter, who is a trained mathematician... (more) |
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A Victim of Higher Space (1917) |
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| Algernon Blackwood |
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This is another of the John Silence tall-tales, this time involving a man who learns to visualize 4-dimensional space and then starts slipping in and out of the hyperspace. As he describes it,
"This... (more) |
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The Wonderful Visit (1895) |
|
| Herbert George Wells |
|
"An angel, who normally inhabits a fourth dimensional world (with curvature instead of gravitation!) falls into our three dimensional world." (more) |
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A Wrinkle in Time (1962) |
|
| Madeleine L'Engle |
|
In this classic children's adventure story,
"time travel is explained as a tesseract, a five dimensional figure. By
traveling along the tesseract, one bypasses the space in between."
Usually,... (more) |
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You Don't Scare Me (2007) |
|
| John Farris |
|
A math grad student at Yale is haunted by the memory and undead spirit of her abusive stepfather. Using her knowledge of the mathematics of "higher dimensions", she locates the coordinates of the "netherworld" where he lives. (more) |
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