MATHEMATICAL FICTION:

a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)

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Blasphemy (2008)
Douglas Preston
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Contributed by Vijay Fafat

Douglas Preston's novel, “Blasphemy”, contains a few mathematical references that come up when scientists encounter “God” at the (hypothetical) world's largest particle collider, SSC II. Chaitin's Omega number appears along with “e”, as does Knuth's up-arrow notation (in specifying an ultra-large number dubbed “God's First Number”). The universe is described by “God” as an irreducible computation whose output would require a complete computation lasting God's-First-Number years. There are a couple of nice paragraphs, where “God” says: “You give me a hand with 5 fingers, not the integer 5. Your number system has no independent existence in the real world. It is nothing more than a sophisticated metaphor” and “[you are] like a monkey who has figured out how to count to three. You find four pebbles and think you have discovered infinity”.

Contributed by Anonymous

The logics and axiom of mathematics are incredibly important to this story.

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 Blasphemy
According to my `secret formula', the following works of mathematical fiction are similar to this one:
  1. Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer
  2. The Last Answer by Isaac Asimov
  3. Saint Joan of New York: A Novel About God and String Theory by Mark Alpert
  4. Pieces of Pi by David Bartell
  5. The Visiting Professor by Robert Littell
  6. Anathem by Neal Stephenson
  7. Distances by Vandana Singh
  8. Eifelheim by Michael Flynn
  9. White Light, or What is Cantor's Continuum Problem? by Rudy Rucker
  10. Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan
Ratings for Blasphemy:
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:
4/5 (1 votes)
..
Literary Quality:
5/5 (1 votes)
.

Categories:
GenreScience Fiction,
MotifReligion,
TopicReal Mathematics,
MediumNovels,

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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)