MATHEMATICAL FICTION:

a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)

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Path Correction (2021)
Sylvia Wenmackers
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This short story, published in the journal Nature, imagines a future in which people can have the Lyapunov exponent of their own lives evaluated for a fee. Theoretically, this would give them an idea of how different their life could have turned out if things had been just ever so slightly different at one moment.

Other than mentioning Lyapunov a few times, math is not explicitly referenced in the story itself. The author has advanced degrees in physics and the philosophy of science and in a supplement to the story discusses her inspiration for writing it, which involved learning about fractals and chaos theory as a teenager.

Thanks to Allan Goldberg for suggesting that it be added to this database.

More information about this work can be found at www.nature.com.
(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.)

Works Similar to Path Correction
According to my `secret formula', the following works of mathematical fiction are similar to this one:
  1. Freemium by Louis Evans
  2. Applied Mathematical Theology by Gregory Benford
  3. Not a Chance by Peter Haff
  4. The First Task of My Internship by Ziyin Xiong
  5. Axiom of Dreams by Arula Ratnakar
  6. The Mandelbrot Bet by Dirk Strasser
  7. The Simplest Equation by Nicky Drayden
  8. Proof by Induction by José Pablo Iriarte
  9. Mathematical Revelations by Helen De Cruz
  10. Perturbation - For Nature Computes On A Straight Line (In Seven Balancing Acts) by Vijay Fafat
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Categories:
GenreScience Fiction,
Motif
TopicChaos/Fractals,
MediumShort Stories,

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Exciting News: The 1,600th entry was recently added to this database of mathematical fiction! Also, for those of you interested in non-fictional math books let me (shamelessly) plug the recent release of the second edition of my soliton theory textbook.

(Maintained by Alex Kasman, College of Charleston)