MATHEMATICAL FICTION:

a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)

Home All New Browse Search About

...
Crash Course in Romance (2023)
Je Won Yu (director) / Hee-Seung Yang (writer)
...

A grocery store owner and a "celebrity" math teacher fall in love in this South Korean TV series. Each episode’s title is mathematical, and we get to see Choi Chi-yeol being treated like a rock star for teaching math. Other than that, it really is a romance and not particularly about math.

It probably is true that math teachers in South Korea get more respect (and perhaps even fame) than they do in my country (the USA). However, I am guessing that Chi-yeol’s celebrity status in this show is exaggerated for the sake of humor. (E.g. His face is seen throughout the city on billboards, he appears in TV commercials that make him look like an action hero, and his female students literally swoon over him.)

Chi-Yeol also is suffering from malnutrition because he cannot tolerate most food. At first, he and grocery store owner Nam Haeng-seon form a practical relationship based on the coincidence that he thrives on the prepared dishes that she sells at her store and that her daughter desperately wants to be one of his students. But, it soon blossoms into a romance. That causes a public scandal because it is seen as an illicit affair between a teacher and one of his students' mothers. But then the public realizes that Haeng-seon is not really the girl's biological mother, but is actually only her aunt who adopted her and her "Aspie" brother. Apparently, that makes everything okay! (After that, the series takes a more serious turn when the daughter is left in a coma as the victim of a hit-and-run, which may not even have been an accident.)

More information about this work can be found at www.imdb.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 Crash Course in Romance
According to my `secret formula', the following works of mathematical fiction are similar to this one:
  1. Fermat's Cuisine [Fermat no Ryori] by Yugo Kobayashi
  2. Midnight Diner (Episode: Omelette Rice) by Joji Matsuoka (Director) / Marina Oshima (Screenplay)
  3. The Quantum Weirdness of the Almost-Kiss by Amy Noelle Parks
  4. The Love Formula by Giulia Clerici / Giulia Pasqualini
  5. Principles of Emotion by Sara Read
  6. Proof Geometric Construction Can Solve All Love Affairs by Takahashi Manbou (lyricist) / Ane Manbou (illustrator)
  7. A Season of Flirtation by Julia Justiss
  8. Calculating the Speed of Heartbreak by Wendy Nikel
  9. A Perfect Equation (The Secret Scientists of London) by Elizabeth Everett
  10. The Italian in Need of an Heir by Lynne Graham
Ratings for Crash Course in Romance:
RatingsHave you seen/read this work of mathematical fiction? Then click here to enter your own votes on its mathematical content and literary quality or send me comments to post on this Webpage.
(unrated)

PLEASE HELP US OUT BY ENTERING YOUR OWN RATINGS FOR THIS WORK.

Categories:
GenreRomance,
MotifCool/Heroic Mathematicians, Autism, Romance, Math Education,
Topic
MediumTelevision Series or Episode,

Home All New Browse Search About

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)