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The Boy Who Escaped Paradise (2016) |
 | J.M. Lee (author) / Chi-Young Kim (translator) |
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After a body is found surrounded by mathematical formulas in Queens, a young Korean man named Gil-Mo is arrested for the murder. Because of his autistic tendencies, he does not respond at all to the usual... (more) |
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Burn Notice (Episode: Signals and Codes) (2009) |
 | Jason Tracey (screenplay) / Jeremiah Chechik (director) |
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Presumably, each episode of this old TV series features ex-CIA agent Michael Westen catching some "bad guys" in the hope of being re-accepted by his former employer. (I say "presumably" because I've... (more) |
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The Capsule (2010) |
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| Miceal Og O'Donnell (writer and director) |
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A former mathematician who has tape on his glasses, a sleeping bag on his back and talks just like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Main is ordered by his doctor to be more social (to get out of his "capsule").... (more) |
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The Cipher (2015) |
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| John C. Ford |
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As he turns 18, the son of the billionaire who owns the patent on public-key encryption finds himself in several complicated situations. There is a love triangle involving both his long-time girlfriend... (more) |
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The Countable (2011) |
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| Ken Liu |
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An autistic boy finds comfort in Cantor's discovery that the set of fractions is greatly outnumbered by the set of irrationals. (See, for example, Cantor's Diagonal Argument.)
I did not much enjoy... (more) |
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Crash Course in Romance (2023) |
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| Je Won Yu (director) / Hee-Seung Yang (writer) |
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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... (more) |
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Cube (1997) |
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| Vincenzo Natali (Director) |
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This [film] concerns the attempt of six individuals to escape from a vast network
of interlocking cubes, each room, and each wall, floor and ceiling
identical. The rooms vary in colour. Some are harmless;... (more) |
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (2003) |
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| Mark Haddon |
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The narrator of this novel is Christopher Boone, an autistic teenager who is trying to figure out who killed his neighbor's dog. Although Christopher is very good at math, he is not very good at understanding... (more) |
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The Deluge (2023) |
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| Stephen Markley |
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One character in this tome-sized political eco-thriller is Ashir al-Hasan. Ash, as he is called by friends, is a a government data analyst. Although he also appears to be "on the spectrum",
he is not... (more) |
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Eye of the Beholder (2005) |
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| Alex Kasman |
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Shortly after a stunning success in her research, personal tragedy forces a math professor to change careers and begin work at the NSA where her work on cryptography involves some difficult ethical decisions.... (more) |
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Gauntlet (2009) |
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| Richard Aaron |
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Autistic mathematician, Hamilton Turbee, helps stop a terrorist plot.
The book has received praise for its portrayal of an autism and as a thriller. Of course, I like to see mathematicians portrayed... (more) |
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The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009) |
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| Stieg Larsson |
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In this sequel to the stunningly popular The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the self-taught, nearly autistic, young genius, Lisbeth Salander, once again becomes involved in a thrilling mystery allied with... (more) |
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Imaginary Numbers (2020) |
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| Seanan McGuire |
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Sarah Zellaby, a running character in McGuire's InCryptid books, is featured prominently in this entry from the series. Sarah's species evolved from insects in another dimension but look essentially like... (more) |
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Invisibly Breathing (2019) |
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| Eileen Merriman |
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Felix Catalan, a teenager whose autistic tendencies make him unpopular in school, becomes romantically involved with another student whose stutter similarly makes him an outcast.
Like many other anti-social... (more) |
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Der kalte Himmel (2011) |
|
| Johannes Fabrick (director)
/ Andrea Stoll (writer) |
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In this German film, a woman raising her children on a farm in 1967 tries to get help for her mathematically talented but anti-social son. Obtaining the services of a forward-thinking Berlin psychiatrist,... (more) |
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The Kiss Quotient (2018) |
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| Helen Hoang |
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Stella is an woman with autistic tendencies who falls in love with the gigolo she hires to help her overcome her problems with intimacy. This romance novel, we are told, was inspired by the true life... (more) |
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La fiamma sul ghiaccio (The Flame on the Ice) (2006) |
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| Umberto Marino (director) |
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An Italian movie about a mathematician with Asperger's syndrome.
The role of the protagonist is played by
Raoul Bova. According to Bova, It's the story of a young mathematics
professor afflicted with... (more) |
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The Last Theorem (2008) |
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| 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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A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines (2006) |
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| Janna Levin
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This novel about Alan Turing and Kurt Gödel contains much that has already been said many times before, and occasionally "tries too hard" artistically. Still I very much enjoyed reading it, and even... (more) |
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Mercury Rising (1998) |
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| Harold Becker (director) |
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Bruce Willis is an FBI agent trying to protect an autistic child whose mathematical abilities allow him to break the government's top secret codes.
Now, it is true that some of the most frequently used... (more) |
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Mozart and the Whale (2005) |
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| Petter Næss (Director) |
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A romance about two people with Asperger's Syndrome based on a true story. I have not seen the film, but understand that the male character is obsessed with numbers and statistics but works as a cab driver.... (more) |
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My Heart Belongs to Bertie (2018) |
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| Helen DeWitt |
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This short story, which appears in the anthology "Some Trick: Thirteen Stories by Helen DeWitt" features an academic turned author arguing with a literary agent who wants him to include less math in his... (more) |
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The Outside (2019) |
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| Ada Hoffman |
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The way this science fiction novel conflates technology and religion is more interesting than anything it does with mathematics. The "gods" in the book are advanced artificial intelligences and "angels"... (more) |
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Problem Child (1964) |
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| Arthur Porges |
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By working ceaselessly on proving a new theorem, a successful math professor tries to avoid thinking about the fact that he has lost his wife who died in childbirth and about Paul, their "vegetable" of... (more) |
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Question 3 (2016) |
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| Martin Sandahl (Director and Writer) |
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A short film about a boy with Asperger's Syndrome who competes in the International Mathematical Olympiad. However, neither the mathematical problems nor the boy's success in the competition is the main... (more) |
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Secrets to the Grave (2011) |
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| Tami Hoag |
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Mathematician Zander Zahn is suspected of having murdered an artist in this follow-up to the novel "Deeper than the Dead". Almost no mathematics is actually discussed, not even the tiny amount one often... (more) |
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The Square Root of 2 (2015) |
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| Hackie Reitman (writer and director) / Bernard Salzmann (director) |
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A movie about the difficulties faced by an autistic young woman with over-protective parents who attends college to pursue a career in mathematics. Author/director Reitman is an M.D. with an interest in... (more) |
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Strip Search (2007) |
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| William Bernhardt |
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A detective is aided by an autistic child in capturing a serial killer who leaves equations written in the blood of his victims at the scenes of the grisly crimes.
In your MathFiction entry for William... (more) |
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Touch (2012) |
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| Tim Kring |
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This TV show combines disparate familiar elements. Like "24", it has Kiefer Sutherland running around trying to save people. Like "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" it has the autistic child of a single... (more) |
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Trueman Bradley: Aspie Detective (2012) |
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| Alexei Maxim Russell |
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Trueman Bradley moves from a small midwestern town to New York City to establish himself as a private detective. At first people try to discourage him as he seems highly unqualified. Not only has he... (more) |
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The Ultimate Prime (2001) |
|
| Tom Petsinis |
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A story narrated in second person about a youth with autism whose only interest is mathematics.
Since "you" are the protagonist in this story, it puts the reader inside the mind of an individual who... (more) |
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X+Y (A Brilliant Young Mind) (2014) |
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| Morgan Matthews (Director) / James Graham (Writer) |
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An autistic teenager learns to deal with the death of his father and his first romance as he represents Britain in the International Mathematical Olympiad.
This film is very loosely based on the story... (more) |
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