A time-travel story in which Henry Hassel travels back in time to change the past (specifically, to kill his wife who has cheated on him), but finds that none of the usual time-travel tropes apply. In fact, despite his attempts to change the past in the most dramatic ways he can imagine, things do not turn out at all as he (or the reader) expects.
The story begins with the narrator relaying some anecdotes about famous historical scientists and mathematicians. The story about Boltzman is a joke about the way he lectured by saying complicated mathematical formula out loud without writing them on the board. (In the version of the story I am reading, the version reprinted in the anthology "The Dark Side of the Earth" by Signet in 1964), the formulas Boltzman is reciting are rendered in standard text and are almost funny by themselves. For instance, I'm guessing that aSb is supposed to be the integral from a to b?) It also includes a story about Jacques Charles which is not mathematical in itself aside from the fact that it describes Charles as a mathematician.
Later in the story, Hassel attempts to talk to the colleague who is (at that very moment) making out with Hassel's wife, and does so in way that humorously combines mathematical notation with the names of historical figures. I will attempt to replicate it here:
(quoted from The Men who Murdered Mohammed)
Murphy, u-v=(u'-v1/4)(ua+u^xvy+vb) but when George Washington F(x) y2dx and Enrico Fermi F(u') dxdt one half of Marie Curie, then what about Christopher Columbus times the square root of minus one?
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At that point, the narrator tells us that he has copied Hassel's formula down on the hood of a passing car, but Murphy seems oblivious and continues kissing Mrs. Hassel.
When Hassel finally gets to talk to the narrator, who has a better understanding of what is going on than he does, he again briefly tries talking in equations, but the narrator cuts him short...and I think that's all of the math in it.
So, there's not a lot of math in this story, but it is a fun read, especially for anyone with a taste for mathematically-flavored science fiction.
Thanks to Anna Engelsone, a professor in the Mathematics and Computer Science Department at
Maryville College wrote to suggest I add this classic science fiction story to my database. |