a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)
a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)
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| In the episode 2-D Blacktop from Futurama's tenth season, Professor Farnsworth invents a device that looks like a tesseract and takes his "hot rod" into the fourth dimension. When he collides with Leela's ship during a drag race on a giant Möbius strip, they end up in a 2-dimensional "flatland". In addition to referencing the classic mathematical fiction novel Flatland, they make intriguing observations about life in such a world (e.g. that creatures could not have a digestive tract like animals in our world do, because that would divide them into two unconnected pieces). The Professor uses his device again to return to 3-dimensions, passing briefly through an existence of fractional dimensional objects, fractals, before returning them home to New New York.
Many episodes of this science fiction cartoon series from Matt Groening include mathematical "in jokes". For an overview of mathematics in the series Futurama, see Sarah Greenwald's website Futurama Math and her recorded lecture lecture "Bite My Shiny Metal X". |
| More information about this work can be found at futurama.fandom.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.) |
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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)
