MATHEMATICAL FICTION:

a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)

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Nachman at the Races (1999)
Leonard Michaels
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In Michaels' third Nachman story, we learn that the UCLA mathematician enjoys attending horse races -- apparently his only emotional outlet besides his mathematics research. There is discussion of the question of how much the outcome of the race depends on unpredictable chance events. Nachman believes that he has a statistics based system -- although it is not well formulated and is achieved largely subconsciously -- for selecting the winner which would work most of the time. Usually, he does not make his bets based on the system since he is not interested in money, but offers its advice to his troubled friend, a minister who is attending the race with his young daughter while his wife is in the hospital.

This story was published in Partisan Review 3/ 1999 VOL. LXVI NO. 3 and can be found in the collection Collected Stories of Leonard Michaels which appeared shortly after the author's death.

In addition, Arion Press published The Nachman Stories in a separate and very expensive book.

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 Nachman at the Races
According to my `secret formula', the following works of mathematical fiction are similar to this one:
  1. Nachman by Leonard Michaels
  2. Cryptology by Leonard Michaels
  3. The Penultimate Conjecture by Leonard Michaels
  4. Nachman Burning by Leonard Michaels
  5. Silent Cruise by Timothy Taylor
  6. Of Mystery There Is No End by Leonard Michaels
  7. San by Lan Samantha Chang
  8. The Wild Numbers by Philibert Schogt
  9. Orpheus Lost: A Novel by Janette Turner Hospital
  10. The Fall of a Sparrow by Robert Hellenga
Ratings for Nachman at the Races:
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:
3/5 (1 votes)
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Literary Quality:
4/5 (1 votes)
..

Categories:
Genre
MotifAnti-social Mathematicians, Future Prediction through Math, Religion,
TopicProbability/Statistics,
MediumShort Stories,

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Exciting News: The 1,600th entry was recently added to this database of mathematical fiction! Also, for those of you interested in non-fictional math books let me (shamelessly) plug the recent release of the second edition of my soliton theory textbook.

(Maintained by Alex Kasman, College of Charleston)