MATHEMATICAL FICTION:

a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)

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The Kissing Number (1992)
Ian Stewart
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Published as part of his "Mathematical Recreations" column in Scientific American (February 1992), this story concerns human colonists on Mars who are trying to figure out how many non-overlapping "circular" regions of a fixed radius they can put on the planet. Though in the story the regions are the ranges of TV transmitters and the problem is complicated by ancient Martian artifacts, the point of the story is to introduce an example of a packing problem and to discuss several real results on such problems in mathematics.

(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 The Kissing Number
According to my `secret formula', the following works of mathematical fiction are similar to this one:
  1. Globión's Whimsical Shape (La Caprichosa Forma de Globión) by Alejandro Illanes Mejía
  2. Hilbert's Hotel by Ian Stewart
  3. Conversations on Mathematics with a Visitor from Outer Space by David Ruelle
  4. Report from the Ambassador to Cida-2 by Clifton Cunningham
  5. The Next Dimension by Vladimir Karapetoff
  6. The Extraordinary Hotel or the Thousand and First Journey of Ion the Quiet by Naum Ya. Vilenkin
  7. Not a Chance by Peter Haff
  8. Science Fiction Puzzle Tales by Martin Gardner
  9. Chaos in Wonderland: Visual Adventures in a Fractal World by Clifford Pickover
  10. Turing (A Novel About Computation) by Christos Papadimitriou
Ratings for The Kissing Number:
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:
5/5 (1 votes)
.
Literary Quality:
1/5 (1 votes)
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Categories:
GenreScience Fiction, Didactic,
Motif
TopicGeometry/Topology/Trigonometry, Real Mathematics,
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)