MathFiction: Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (Lewis Carroll)

a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)

...
Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893)

Lewis Carroll
(click on names to see more mathematical fiction by the same author)
...

The sequel to his somewhat popular book "Sylvie and Bruno" never achieved the popularity of the original. This lack of success may or may not be related to Chapter VII (entitled "Mein Herr") of the book in which (while sharing some tea) the characters discuss the production of a projective plane by gluing the boundary of a disk to the boundary of a Mobius strip.

Contributed by Moses Klein, University of Wisconsin

"The entertaining Klein bottle passage certainly isn't the only mathematical chapter in the book. There's also one exchange in which Bruno estimates a crowd of 1004 ("I'm sure about the four; it's the thousand I'm not sure about") which I occasionally cite to explain significant digits. This book is Lewis Carroll at his finest: subtly sophisticated, playfully presented, but undeservingly underappreciated."

(Thanks to Victor Jiminez Lopez for pointing out an error on this page that I have now hopefully successfully corrected and I will not repeat in order to avoid further embarrassing myself.)

More information about this work can be found at www.hoboes.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 Sylvie and Bruno Concluded

According to my `secret formula', the following works of mathematical fiction are similar to this one:

Euclid and His Modern Rivals by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll)
The Raven and the Writing Desk by Ian T. Durham
What the Tortoise Said to Achilles by Lewis Carroll
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott
A Tangled Tale by Lewis Carroll
The Romance of Mathematics: Being the Original Researches of a Lady Professor of Girtham College... by Peter Hampson Ditchfield
Sphereland: A Fantasy About Curved Spaces and an Expanding Universe by Dionys Burger
Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy
A Certain Ambiguity: A Mathematical Novel by Gaurav Suri / Hartosh Singh Bal
Perelman’s Refusal [Les Refus de Grigori Perelman] by Philippe Zaouati

Ratings for Sylvie and Bruno Concluded:

Ratings

Have 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:
2.66/5 (3 votes)

Literary Quality:
5/5 (3 votes)

Categories:

Genre	Didactic,
Motif	Mobius Strip/Nonorientability,
Topic	Geometry/Topology/Trigonometry,
Medium	Novels, Available Free Online,

Home All New Browse Search About

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)