MATHEMATICAL FICTION:

a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)

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Risqueman (2009)
Mike Wood
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A brilliant (and beautiful) French mathematician is distressed by governmental misuse of her algorithm which accurately predicts accidents and disasters that previously were only determined probabilistically.

The story -- narrated by her British, ex-cop, artist boyfriend -- never really gets into the details of how such an algorithm would work mathematically, but there is plenty of mathematical name-dropping. We learn during an interview that she was originally inspired by Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem (which happened when she was 10 years old) and by the Langlands program. Apparently, her thesis advisor, based on these same ideas, conjectures an actuarial application of the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture. The story also mentions chaos theory (Julia and Fatou), and gives a very brief biography of Sophie Germain.

Risqueman was a second place winner in the 2009 Hubbard Writers of the Future awards from Locus Magazine and was consequently anthologized with the other winners. So far as I know, that is the only published source of this very interesting work of mathematical fiction.

More information about this work can be found at www.amazon.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 Risqueman
According to my `secret formula', the following works of mathematical fiction are similar to this one:
  1. The Stochastic Man by Robert Silverberg
  2. Division by Zero by Ted Chiang
  3. Odds Against Tomorrow by Nathaniel Rich
  4. The Bank by Robert Connolly
  5. Eye of the Beholder by Alex Kasman
  6. Dark Integers by Greg Egan
  7. Mathematicians in Love by Rudy Rucker
  8. Music of the Spheres by Ken Liu
  9. The Woman Who Shook the World-Tree by Michael Swanwick
  10. The Simplest Equation by Nicky Drayden
Ratings for Risqueman:
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.
Mathematical Content:
4/5 (1 votes)
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Literary Quality:
4/5 (1 votes)
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Categories:
GenreScience Fiction,
MotifGenius, Academia, Proving Theorems, Female Mathematicians, Future Prediction through Math, Math as Beautiful/Exciting/Useful, Romance,
TopicMathematical Finance, Probability/Statistics,
MediumShort Stories,

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Where are the new works of mathematical fiction?: As you can see from this chronological listing, this database includes many works of mathematical fiction for each year from 1990 to 2025. Strangely, only two are listed for 2026, so far. Either less mathematical fiction is being published than in previous years or I'm just having more trouble finding it. If you know of any works of fiction that should be added to this list, especially recently published ones, please let me know. (Keep in mind that I do not include self-published works or children's fiction that just covers elementary mathematical concepts.) Thanks!

(Maintained by Alex Kasman, College of Charleston)