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A. Botts and the Moebius Strip (1945) |
 | William Hazlett Upson |
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William Hazlett Upson wrote a series of pieces for the Saturday Evening Post about a salesman for The Earthworm Tractor Company, written as a dialog of letters and memos between Alexander Botts and his... (more) |
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The Algebraist (2005) |
 | Iain M. Banks |
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Fassin Taak is a human in the year 4034 who has the job of communicating with the alien species known as "the dwellers". Since the dweller culture is billions of years old, they have accumulated tremendous... (more) |
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The Atrocity Archives (2004) |
|
| Charles Stross |
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"The Laundry" is a British spy organization which is responsible for suppressing certain dangerous math research. The occult implications of mathematics became clear with Alan Turing's paper "Phase Conjugate... (more) |
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Cantor's War (1974) |
|
| Christopher Anvil |
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In my opinion, this story is slanderous and the author should be ashamed.
The plot involves a science fiction scenario in which the human military is battling aliens in "tau space". Whenever we send... (more) |
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A Catastrophe Machine (2004) |
|
| Charles Scholz |
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A well-written, vaguely surrealistic story loosely based on the real mathematical field of catastrophe theory and set within the context of the Vietnam War.
The title is taken from an invention of mathematician... (more) |
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The Company of Strangers (2001) |
|
| Robert Wilson |
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A bittersweet romance/thriller about a young woman mathematician in
Portugal spying for the British during World War II. There is a lot of
interesting stuff in this novel if you're looking at the romance... (more) |
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Cryptonomicon (1998) |
|
| Neal Stephenson |
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This "cult" novel of mathematics, computer science, espionage and
warfare follows a mathematician through World War II and his grandson
through the creation of a (less than ordinary) silicon valley start-up
company.... (more) |
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Dark Integers (2007) |
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| Greg Egan |
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The ``cold war'' between this universe with our mathematical laws and a bordering universe with different ones (which began in "Luminous") heats up when the numerical experiments of a mathematical physicist... (more) |
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The Death of Archimedes (1949) |
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| Karel Capek |
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As history usually tells the story, Archimedes is killed by a Roman
soldier who did not realize who he was. In this version, however, the
centurion is well aware of who he is speaking with. While he... (more) |
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En busca de Klingsor (In Search of Klingsor) (1999) |
|
| Jorge Volpi |
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The story is highly mathematical, involving a German Character called Gustav
Links, though the main character is a young American physicist called Francis
Bacon (sounds good). The idea is that this... (more) |
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Enigma (1995) |
|
| Robert Harris / Tom Stoppard |
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In this this espionage story set in England's Bletchley Park at the height of the Second World War, Tom Jericho is a clever mathematician at the famous code breaking facility who -- either despite or because... (more) |
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Eon (1985) |
|
| Greg Bear |
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Its been quite a while since I read this, but some info is better than none!
Its rather like "Rama" - a big asteroid appears over the earth in the near future.
It was obviously made to be inhabited... (more) |
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The Fairy Chessmen (1951) |
|
| Henry Kuttner |
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A mathematician whose research involves a type of chess played with
variable rules ("fairy chess") is the only one able to solve an "equation
from the future" in which the constants are treated as variables... (more) |
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The Feeling of Power (1957) |
|
| Isaac Asimov |
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An advanced society rediscovers the joys
of multipying numbers BY HAND, a forgotten art. It's a
gem.
The
author probably did not realize how quickly the premise of this story
(people so dependent... (more) |
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Goldman's Theorem (2009) |
|
| R.J. Stern |
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Hired by the little-known "University of Northern Vermont", Professor Goldman does not seem to be living up to his promise as a great math researcher. Under pressure from his superiors, he claims to have... (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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Ground Zero Man (The Peace Machine) (1971) |
|
| Bob Shaw |
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A self-described `unimportant mathematician' who works on guidance systems for a British weapons manufacturer discovers, just by playing around with the formulas, a way to cause the explosion of every... (more) |
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The Last Theorem (2008) |
|
| Arthur C. Clarke / Frederik Pohl |
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Ranjit Subramanian, the protagonist in this science fiction novel, is a young Sri Lankan man who (re)discovers a short and elementary proof of Fermat's Last Theorem while enduring torture during an unjust... (more) |
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Mathematical R & D (1979) |
|
| Paul J. Nahin |
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This short short story, published in the professional journal
IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems describes a
talk by the (fictional) famous mathematician Professor Osgood. Greatly
limited... (more) |
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Nuremberg Joys (2000) |
|
| Charles Sheffield |
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A mathematician is on trial for war crimes, regarding
his role in developing an absolutely horrendous killing
weapon based on sophisticated new physics. Guilt or
... (more) |
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Orpheus Lost: A Novel (2007) |
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| Janette Turner Hospital |
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This book is simultaneously a beautiful love story with frequent allusions to the myth of Orpheus, a political thriller, and a gut wrenching tear jerker about people whose lives are destroyed by war. ... (more) |
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The Pacific Mystery (2006) |
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| Stephen Baxter |
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This starts as an alternate history short story, in which Lord Halifax became Prime Minister of England in 1940 and reaches an accommodation with Germany; Germany holds sway over Europe and Russia, Japan... (more) |
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The Pacifist (1966) |
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| Arthur C. Clarke |
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Clarke, one of the all-time biggest names in serious science
fiction, took time to write a series of humorous science
fiction tall tales. The stories are narrated by one Harry
... (more) |
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Phase IV (1974) |
|
| Mayo Simon (writer) / Saul Bass (director) |
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A mathematician who `applied game theory to the language of killer whales' is brought in to help fight an attack by intelligent ants. (more) |
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Professor Conundrum Mysteries! (2008) |
|
| Bill Streifer |
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My book, Professor Conundrum Mysteries!...combines math education (non-fiction) and historical fiction.
The book consists of five stories that take place during important events in 20th century U.S.... (more) |
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River of Gods (2006) |
|
| Ian McDonald |
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A science fiction novel about artificial intelligence, politics, cellular automata, climate change and alternate universes that takes place in India of 2047. Math plays only a very small role in this... (more) |
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The Sand-Reckoner (2000) |
|
| Gillian Bradshaw |
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In this historical novel whose title is copied from one Archimedes' own works, the famous Greek mathematician is your typical math nerd, always
so wrapped up in his computations that he is barely aware... (more) |
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Schwarzschild Radius (1987) |
|
| Connie Willis |
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Connie Willis' short-story ``Schwarzschild Radius'' is based on events
in the life of Karl Schwarzschild, who gave the first exact solutions
to the equations of general relativity. The
historical aspects... (more) |
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Sebastian (1968) |
|
| David Greene (director) |
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A film about a British mathematician trying to break the German codes during World War II. (So, add this to the growing list of works of mathematical fiction inspired by Alan Turing!) I must admit that I have not yet seen the film, but you've got to love its tagline:
We can't tell you what he does (it's an international secret) but he does it with 100 girls... and does it the best!
(more) |
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Sekret Enigmy (1979) |
|
| Roman Wionczek
|
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Although Alan Turing tends to get much of the credit for breaking the Nazi "Enigma" codes during World War II, three Polish mathematicians did preliminary work that was equally brilliant and equally important. This film tells their story, featuring some real acts of heroism.
(more) |
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War and Peace (1869) |
|
| Lev Tolstoy |
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Tolstoy's famous novel about...well, about war and peace (!) contains long passages explaining an analogy he makes between history and calculus. In particular, he argues that we should view history as... (more) |
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