Like many of Mauro's other stories, this one is very well written, focusing not so much on plot as on the sympathetic characters with unusual quirks in situations involving coincidence, sorrow, illness, death and spontaneous sexual encounters. However, this is my favorite because of some of the big ideas that appear in it as well.

Note that Fermat's Last Theorem (the statement that there are no positive, whole number solutions to the equation xⁿ+yⁿ=zⁿ when n>2) is famous for being a mathematical statement that is very simple to make but notoriously difficult to prove or disprove. In fact, it was an open problem for hundreds of years until Andrew Wiles (building on the work of many others and with some last minute help from Richard Taylor) finally completed a proof in 1994.

Unlike some other authors, who write about Fermat's Last Theorem without even understanding what it says (like Stieg Larson) or misrepresent its proof (like Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl), Mauro seems to actually get it. His terminology in the first sentence is just slightly off¹, suggesting that he is not himself an expert on the subject, but aside from such semantics, his mathematical remarks are all "spot on".

There are a number of mathematical metaphors throughout the story which (for me at least) give the story its meaning. Two of them, in particular, struck me as being both beautiful and quite novel. I encourage you to read the entire story, if you can obtain a copy, but feel compelled to share these two passages with you in case you are not able to do so:

Mathematics shows up explicitly throughout much of the story as we see the senior music professor pursuing mathematics as a hobby. In addition, I wonder if there is an implicit mathematical reference in the discussion of how the professor feels about the upcoming concert by his student, whom he feels will eclipse his own reputation, since mathematicians are frequently shown in such situations in fiction.

Published in Tampa Review 36 (2008).

First of all, I'm quite certain that it is the elliptic curve (not "equation") which is parameterized. Also, "parametrized" is standard in place of "parameterized." Moreover, I think that the connection with the modular form (which is that it must be an eigenform) is trickier than a question of parametrization at all. And, am I not right that the correspondence does not involve all elliptic curves but rather only elliptic curves over the ring of rational numbers? In fact, I would say that to be technically accurate the first sentence should read

"The Taniyama-Shimura Conjecture...states that every elliptic curve over the rationals can be parametrized by two modular functions of the same level."

If someone reading this truly is an expert, please tell me if this is correct.