Is still available freely online under https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v30n06_1943-02_dongev-sas

"Your mind has been conditioned to Euclid," Holloway said. "So this -- thing -- bores us, and seems pointless. But a child knows nothing of Euclid. A different sort of geometry from ours wouldn't impress him as being illogical. He believes what he sees."

"Are you trying to tell me that this gadget's got a fourth-dimensional extension?" Paradine demanded. "Not visually, anyway," Holloway denied. "All I say is that our minds, conditioned to Euclid, can see nothing in this but an illogical tangle of wires. But a child -- especially a baby -- might see more. Not at first. It'd be a puzzle, of course; Only a child wouldn't be handicapped by too many preconceived ideas."

"Hardening of the thought-arteries," Jane interjected.

Paradine was not convinced. "Then a baby could work calculus better than Einstein? No, I don't mean that. I can see your point, more or less clearly. Only --"

"Well, look. Let's suppose there are two kinds of geometry -- we'll limit it, for the sake of the example. Our kind, Euclidean, and another, which we'll call x. X hasn't much relationship to Euclid. It's based on different theorems. Two and two needn't equal four in it; they could equal y, or they might not even equal. A baby's mind is not yet conditioned, except by certain questionable factors of heredity and environment. Start the infant on Euclid --"

"Poor kid," Jane said.

"This story was a real eye-opener for me. I first read it at age 19, when I was young and still believed that I knew everything. It amazed me that there might be more out there than what all our scholars currently perceive. There could be things that we have no way of perceiving because of our conditioning rather than because of our biological inabilities. We may all be geniuses capable of doing so much more and yet restrained by the limits of our current knowledge. Incredible. This is the first time I've looked the story up online and I am now 40-years-old. This story made more of an impression on me than any other I had read before or since. Thanks for the website."

"I love this story, which I also read as a teenager. I think that even if I had read it for the first time as a 40 year old, I would have liked it also. There is something poignant about the departure of the children, which seems to speak symbolically to the mixed feelings that parents have to the eventual departure of thier children in normal times."

"Like Brave New World, I was not only delighted by the story, but I was also quite surprised at the copyright date, 1943. It is a story that seems ahead of its time, for example, when I first read Brave New World, I thought it was written in the 1950s, not the 1920s. In the case of "Mimsy Were The Barograves," I read it not as mathematical fiction (my mind doesn't work that way, I am more interested in epistemology, rhetorical theory,B and the history of ideas and civilizations), but rather as existential fiction and in that sense, it was ten years ahead of it's time. In 1943, Victor Frankl was still in a Nazi concentration camp, and had not yet written his book opening the doors of psychology to existential theory. And 1943 was at least ten years before Albert Camus' The Fall, the finest work of French existential fiction ever. As existential fiction, it might be conceived that it is rather the opposite of what would be called mathematical, since mathematics is based on an absolute reality, whereas existential thought is more to a consensual reality, with a concession to the 'real world realities' that, even if they are not absolute, might as well be from the point of view of the individual, and so proscribe our existance."

I thought it was pretty cool that people in the future send their educational toys into the past. God knows we need them back here.

I love this story. It's close to my absolute defining Sf/Fantasy story - and I introduced it to my children and they all fell in love with it, too. An exquisite experience to read.

The work was amazing, but it's math content wasn't incredibly huge. Basically, I was able to mostly understand it and I wouldn't concider myself a math person.

great story. i love well thought out s f especially from this period. nearly as good as the original "Flowers for Algernon" + some of John Wyndham's short stories.

I read 'Mimsy' in the very early seventies. I found it in a collection of very fine short SF stories. I believe that it came in a box of books that were given to our submarine to entertain us as we silently patrolled below the North Atlantic during the Cold War. I read it every now and then to this day. There seems to be.... Hell! It's just a very good read.

I first read this story in the mid 90s in a science fiction collection from the 70's, which is when I thought it was written. I was struck by the time travelling and the concept of children being able to be conditioned to a point beyond adult understanding. I didn't understand the concept of non-euclidian math until much later, but with my understandings of things today, the story seems to have greater implications.

I first read this as a teenager 30 years ago and have often found myself daydreaming about this fantastic work. The new to be released "Mimzy" appears to be an attempt on this story. Just the little I saw if the trailer reminded me of this story instantly! I only hope they (Hollywood) do it the justice it deserves.

I first read "Mimsy were the borogroves" when I was about 9 years old, and had to get the dictonary out for some of the words, but I was deeply moved by the story. I was given a set of anthologies of best sci-fi short stories, and I read every one of them. This story is the only one I still remember. I have been looking for a copy of it within the last year, to no avail. But then, yesterday, I saw a preview for "The Last Mimzy" and it was great! I'm so glad this tale will be available to the public on a large scale.

Having watched the preview to Mimzy, I noticed the reference to "genius"

I believe genius is a way of thinking, optimizing one's capacity for learning.

Magic is any phenomenon, imbued with wonder, compensating for, or in place of understanding.

Both definitions, I learned by osmosis from this story...

-Kate

I still still remember this story after nearly 25 years. When I watched the trailer for the movie I knew immediately the source. What the authors were trying to convey (my interpetation) was the concept: There are no absolute truths, and the mind of a child can be far more open to possibilities. As an example, we have come full circle regarding parallel universe theory, the idea was out there in Lewis Carroll's day, but most serious scientists would have called in bunc in the last decade. There is a little bit of "magic" in math and kids find it really cool. We should teach our child to learn, and there really are infinite possibilities.

I read this story as a teenager (I am now 62) and never forgot it. It had a huge impact on me -- I still remember not only the complete plot, but also dialogue in the story. When I saw the ads for The Last Mimzy I knew immediately it was taken from the story. I am skeptical, however, that they did it justice (Hollywood has a tendency to "improve" books and stories). However, sucker that I am, I'll probably go see it. Is the original story available in any anthologies, still in print, etc.?

I read this story in the 40s as a child and loved it. Padgett had always been a favorite of mine and I especially liked his robot stories..

We just saw the Last Mimzy movie- liked it in a different way from ET (the adult scientists were much better), John Wyndham's alien inspired children of the damned, or Arthur C Clark's "Against the Fall of Night", referencing next step-in-evolution children..

Amazing. I also read this short story as a teenager (am 60 now) & it had a profound affect on me. I also was immediately reminded of it when I saw the movie trailer & was moved to seek out more info on google - which is how I got HERE. I wish I could find a copy of it now but my scifi book collection disappeared ages ago. Maybe the movie (if it succeeds) will lead to a reprint?

This story came out of my father's collection, don't know what book. We (my family) loved "Alice in Wonderland" and my parents knew the "Jaberwocky" by heart. We were quite a show at dinner! Couldn't believe it when I read "Mimsy Were the Borogoves"! Can't wait to see the movie. Eve

I just saw a sneak preview of the movie, and I have to say... It was GREAT. I immediately returned home to see if i could find a copy of the origional story, and this website is as close as I could get... But I just ordered the science fiction anthology mentioned above from Half.com for less than $7... Get it while you can!

This novella was also reprinted in "Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 5 (1943)" (DAW Books, 1981). I loved that story as a child, along with Wilmar Siras's "In Hiding" and other books about genius kids having to hide in an indifferent or hostile world.

Spoiler: One of the things I appreciated more as I reread it later was the unintended consequences of the original experimenter. He put his son's outgrown toys in the boxes just as a placeholder; their effect on Alice Liddell and the Paradine children was an outcome he hadn't considered.

I read this story many years ago. It made quite an impression on me. I felt as if I were just waking up from a long sleep and should be part of the story myself; or that I was part of the story and somehow got separated from it and couldn't get back home. If only I too could figure out how to make the slithy tove I too could get back home. When I read the end of the story, it seemed so simple I couldn't imagine how I could not have known the answer. I haven't seen the movie yet, and I hesitate to say what I remember lest I spoil the story, but I don't know how they resolve the movie. So I won't say. I remember wanting to know non-Euclidian math and that I never would. I was sure that it was not being taught on purpose. It took a long time for the effect of this story to leave me. But the moment I was the preview on tv I felt as if there was something profound that I had forgotten. My kids and I saw an extended trailer tonight and I literally jumped out of my seat screaming: "how could I have forgotten! I know this story. I changed me!" My kids think I'm nuts but I can't wait to see the movie. On an ironic note, I recently gave away the lion share of the scifi books I collected over the last 30 years. One of them contained this story. Who knew? At least I know where I donated the books so perhaps I can get the copy back.

I know my kids are learning math at a rate far excellerated than I did. Some of what they are learning I paid big money to learn in college at art school. It amazes me and makes me sad and happy all at the same time. Perhaps they will be the ones to make this story come true. After all, if it something that can be imagined...

You asked why the filmmakers might have changed the spelling of "mimsy". This is just a guess, but in the phrase, "mimsy were the borogoves", the word is clearly an adjective. In the phrase, "the last mimzy", the word is clearly a noun. Perhaps that is the reason...they changed the spelling when they changed the part of speech.

I was a teenager (now 65) when I first read this story in an anthology of Science Fiction which also featured the novella "Flowers for Algernon". Nothing has affected me as much as the sheer joy of this first reading of two of Sci Fi's classics, and I've been a rabid fan ever since. I hope we see more of Henry Kuttner's work (The Proud Robot. etc.) in film and reprint.

Raymond A. Tucker Sr., Hyattsville, MD

This story is available in "The Best of Henry Kuttner" Ballentine Books 1975. I am sure I have at least two more in various books I have collected. I suggest used book stores or the web for purchase. I was facinated by this story because it deals with interpreting the environment in non - classical ways. I believe it is such thinking that will eventually lead to Faster than Light travel and new sources of energy. If an electron can Change energy levels in zero time doesn't this imply matter transmission ? Many of these types of new thinking are pushing the frontiers of high energy particle physics and modern cosmology.

On reading the movie trailer for "The Last Mimzy," the familiarity of the plot started to tickle my brain. A quick Google search lead me here, where I found it was a story I read in my early 20's (I'm 59 now). I was going to try your suggestion of searching for an on-line copy when you mentioned The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Vol 1. A perusal through my library, and voila! I still had that book! I'm looking forward to reading/enjoying it again. I'm SO glad I found your site. Thank you! PS I'm still a science fiction fan after all these years. I still have all my original Ray Bradbury as well.

Unfortunately I read this story translated into Russian. Now I am trying to get it in English. But I think it is brilliant. Not because of maths or anything like that. For my the main idea of the work is that the younger the child is, the more opportunities of learning different, unusual for an adult things he or she has. It is adults who make children lose these unique abilities.

When I saw an advertisement for the first time for the film The Last Mimzy I got goosebumps up and down my back. In that instant I was taken back some thirty-seven years to my reading of Mimsy Were the Borogroves and the father's frantic calls to Emma and Scotty. Back then, at thirteen years of age, I wanted so badly to know where they had gone and if they were OK. I wanted to know about this special math they had learned. I no longer have my copy of the book in which the story appeared.

Then, a week or so ago these wretched advertisements for the film started to appear. I exclaimed to my children, “I know this story!” and began to tell them of Emma and Scotty and the toys. I don't know why but I was fighting back tears as I did this. Then, this afternoon my thirteen year-old son and I went to the film. On its own I enjoyed the film very much. However, because the film is connected to this story I want to be even more positive in what I say about the film. Then, because of the film's differences from the original story I want to criticize the film. Somehow or other I hold the original story quite dear. Stories — boy they can sure get to you and this one will stay with me forever.

My thoughts echoed much of what has been written - read the book as a little girl (dad was big scifi fan) and was intrigued, entranced, delighted, and provoked to further reading. After hearing about the movie, I thought "wait a minute - that's Mimsy!" and I scoured my completely out of order collection to track to track it down. Thanks to Janet for mentioning the anthology by name (Silverberg's Science Fiction Hall of Fame Vol 1). I was not surprised my copy actually fell open to this story.

Although the math in Mimsy was thin (mostly referential), it did open my mind to possibilities, and for that reason stuck with me. And perhaps it is not a coincidence that some of my best classes at MIT were in math, even though I did not major in that, I took extra math for fun!

I will likely see the movie, but have little faith in Hollywood to capture the essence of the book. I long to be wrong.

I just saw the movie, which I enjoyed very much. And after reading all of the comments on this site, I definitely need to get a copy of the story and read it. Though I've been reading science fiction for about 50 years (71 now) this is one that I've never come across and I look forward to reading it.

I read the story about forty or more years ago, so my appreciation of its math content must be taken as fallible and cloudy, but I still remember the excitement it brought. Took in the film last night--good on its own terms, and as a translation of a literary gem it does better than most---even if the children are left here. Some of the comments above seem to take exception to the mystical "new age-ey" elements, but they didn't bother me--maybe because I have miles enough on my personal odometer so that I'm less dismissive of such things than I was, some decades back. Thanks for having this site running, Alex--interesting stuff.

Like many of the others, I read Mimsy Were the Borogoves many years ago, before I had children. I told my daughter about it when she was a teenager and she went and found it in the city library. She told me "I want those toys!" I must admit I had a similar reaction. The story is exceptionally well-told and the themes of changing paradigms and the power of toys are developed and explained clearly and memorably. The author was obviously interested in explaining some math to the audience, but you don't really need to understand multiple-dimension geometry to enjoy the story.

The Last Mimzy missed the mark badly. To update the story is one thing; to miss the point entirely is unforgivable. For one thing, there was just about no math at all. Worse, the movie failed to develop the children's growth properly: they did not become super-smart, as in the movie; they just learned to see things differently from their parents.

In retrospect, that was the power of the original story, from the parents' point of view: your children learn things that you don't understand - that you fundamentally cannot understand - and their new knowledge takes them to places where you cannot go, and where you cannot protect them. And yet, for the children it just seems normal: "Why don't people go down to the sea?" The end of the story, where the children disappear, depicts a universal experience: the generation gap. All parents face this but the movie's producers couldn't bring themselves to tell that story.

I read this sci-fi story as a young teen in the Asimov-edited anthology and immediately selected it as the #1 story in the anthology. Every so often, I reread the story, and at age 47, I'm still fascinated by it. I was unaware of the film until I found your site, and I don't think I will see it. I don't think any film could do justice to the story that has lived inside me for so many years.

I read "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" at about age 18. I am now 63 and a retired educator. As I tended to be a SciFi buff in my early youth (well, I guess I still am), I read Mimsy without much thought, one way or the other. Interestingly, the story has, in away, haunted me all these years. When I saw the movie, I was not disappointed. Of course, as most movies I have seen over the years do, great liberties were taken with the story. The movie retains a ghost of the original story, but is enough different that someone with some imagination could still make a movie more true to the original story and it would be very intertaining. I loved the movie, although little reference is given to anything mathematical other than, the science experiment web, geometrics in the device, their shared dream toward the end, and the references to the "bridge." Hmmm, okay. LOL

I read Lewis Padgett's story so long ago that most of it escapes my memory...I have longed to find it again, and thanks to the movie "The Last Mimzy" I have the author's name at last. Having been disappointed so many times in the past by movies based on beloved books, I was not expecting the movie to resemble what I could remember of the story. The movie was entertaining, and hopeful, but only loosely based on the ideas put forth by the story.

My husband and I read this story in the early 70's when enrolled in a science-fiction and fantasy literature class in college. Our son was about 2 years old. I didn't mind the math, though I don't understand it, but was given chills afterward while watching our child play with toys in ways that were not the designer's intent. I now get chills watching my granddaughter play, and hearing the songs she has "composed" at the age of 3!

It always occurred to me that the children would have a difficult time wherever they wound up, particularly the older boy. They would basically be feral, atavistic children in that world.

I was extremely disappointed to see another brilliant work of classic science fiction twisted by Hollywood producers to satisfy a leftist liberal narrative. The same treatment was given to The Day the Earth Stood Still . Overzealous amateur environmentalists may enjoy watching works of art dumbed down to fit their uninformed theories but I do not. The toys were not like those described in the original story; leading the children to alter their perception of space/time to the point of manipulating it and opening a door to the next dimensional plane . Instead, they answered a plea for help from scientists in the future. It puts me in mind of Alien . Everyone who has any love of scifi predicted every single scene before it unfolded; it followed so many clichés. So weak a plot and predictable to today's sloppy directors and writers. The original plot of All Mimsy.. of a far-future scientist just cleaning out bins of old educational toys to focus the precision of his tesseract and unwittingly setting off the events that will lead to mankind's eventual further evolution were brilliant in its not being thought a big thing by the scientist, who growing up in the future and experiencing such wondrous things thinks them commonplace. Think of taking a bic lighter or flashlight to the sixth century AD. The children, trying to build a path and getting guidance from a pre verbal toddler who has the easiest time learning the new geometries because he has less to unlearn than the slightly older siblings- my God! This story was like a lightning bolt to my twelve year old mind. My mother taught me to read at four and at six I was starting to enjoy her library of scifi novels. Bradbury, Heinlein, Asimov, E.E. Smith, Anderson and of course, I found Kuttner. The next story to so thoroughly move me was By His Bootstraps by Heinlein, describing coulter loops in time and paradox theories. I take Science Fiction very seriously because I have witnessed some of that fiction becoming fact. My firmest belief is this- Of the infinite number of potential universes/realities created by true artists of the genre, how many might be one tiny, single insight away from grasping wholly? I hope that another production company takes up the story and does a movie truer to the original. You got a lot of positive responses from people who actually read the original. I want to hear responses from people who never read it but saw a movie true to the original plot. All you have is thanks from those who were reminded of a brilliant story they once read. Where is the new generation blown away by the concepts we found so long ago? A newer generation with better toys than we had in the 50's and 60's to play and dream with?