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Three Days and a Child [Shlosha Yamim VeYeled] (1965) |
 | Abraham B. Yehoshua |
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Dov, an Israeli mathematics graduate student, watches the young child of a woman he knew at a kibbutz. He alternates between loving the child as he still loves the woman and intentionally endangering... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-11-15 21:18:51 |
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Yarn Theory (2025) |
 | Marie Vibbert |
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Many works of science fiction concern the use of mathematics for communication with extraterrestrial being. (See the list of similar works below for some examples.) Madame Defarge in the Charles Dickens... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-11-14 16:10:07 |
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The Hangman's Brother (2023) |
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| David Sheskin |
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This short story begins with the following odd setup:
Minutes before his execution for blasphemy the brilliant Pakistani mathematician Zahid Abidi whispered into the ear of the hangman who would fasten... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-11-14 10:26:45 |
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Knots (2022) |
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| David Sheskin |
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After a quote about knots from Wikipedia, this short story begins with this odd setup:
Minutes before his execution for blasphemy a brilliant Iranian mathematician whispered into the right ear of... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-11-14 10:06:38 |
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Do Not Say We Have Nothing (2016) |
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| Madeleine Thien |
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This is one of those novels that interweaves storylines in two different time periods. The contemporary one is narrated by Marie Jiang (aka Jiang Li-ling) who is a math professor in British Columbia.... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-11-02 13:36:00 |
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The Beauty Within (2013) |
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| Marguerite Kaye |
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In this romance novel, a woman who has interest in mathematics and no interest in finding a husband beguiles an Italian artist.
Like many of the other works of "mathematical romance", this one is historical... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-10-24 20:09:20 |
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Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming [Báró Wenckheim hazatér] (2016) |
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| László Krasznahorkai |
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This novel by the 2025 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature mostly concerns the titular baron returning to his hometown in Hungary after generating a huge gambling debt in Argentina. However, another... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-10-24 14:30:36 |
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Foundation's Fear (Second Foundation Book I) (1999) |
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| Gregory Benford |
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This prequel to Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" series was part of a trilogy endorsed by Asimov's estate. This first book, by physicist Gregory Benford, showed "mathist" Hari Seldon becoming involved in politics... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-10-22 17:41:39 |
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The Bishop Murder Case (1928) |
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| S.S. van Dine (pseudonym of Willard Huntington Wright) |
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Our hero, Philo Vance, says at the end of this mystery novel: "At the outset I was able to postulate a mathematician as the criminal agent. The difficulty of naming the murderer lay in the fact that nearly... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-10-05 20:22:53 |
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The Waters (2024) |
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| Bonnie Jo Campbell |
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"Donkey" is a young girl living on a remote Michigan island with her grandmother, an eccentric herbalist. A popular math book from her aunt Prim called "Garden of Logic by Professor A. Schweiss" is like... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-09-24 16:11:21 |
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Katabasis (2025) |
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| R.F. Kuang |
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As frequent contributor Aidan Thompkins explains, the characters in this horror/fantasy novel use mathematics to perform magic and to explore the bizarre geometry of Hell itself:
R. F. Kuang is one... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-09-19 19:48:06 |
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Ambiguity Machines: An Examination (2015) |
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| Vandana Singh |
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These three linked short stories are presented as part of an exam in "abstract engineering". Each story presents a specific example of device that exists only in "conceptual machine-space". The second... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-09-15 14:13:29 |
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How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky (2014) |
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| Lydia Netzer |
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Although they both work at the Toledo Institute of Astronomy, George Dermont and Irene Sparks are an odd couple in that he's a romantic and a believer in all sorts of supernatural things while she is a... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-09-11 11:31:07 |
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Albert's Cradle (1993) |
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| Paul Levinson |
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This work of fiction purports to be Albert Einstein's last thoughts about non-Euclidean geometry, as written on his deathbed:
None of my work would have been possible without
Lobachevskian geometry.... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-09-04 15:49:18 |
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The Tyranny of Numbers (1994) |
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| William Spencer |
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Although Piero Della Francesca is today best known as an early Renaissance artist, he was also a mathematician. (See Math Tutor Biographies for a summary of his mathematical work.
In this short story,... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-09-04 15:18:31 |
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The Statistician (1991) |
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| Bev Jafek |
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The statistician of the title introduces himself by saying:
You MUST KNOW ME: I’m the man who proved that
the percentage of rodent hair and excrement in the average candy bar is.00152. If you Ve... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-09-04 11:43:44 |
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The Duke is Mine (2011) |
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| Eloisa James |
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In this retelling of "The Princess and the Pea" as a romance novel, the character of Quin starts out with some unusual characteristics for the love interest in that genre. He is a "mama's boy" and a "math... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-09-02 09:30:58 |
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Lucky Day (2025) |
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| Chuck Tingle |
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Things seem to be going well for Vera at the start of Chuck Tingle's "Lucky Day". She is the youngest math/stats professor at the University of Chicago whose first book has just been published and she... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-08-29 13:42:57 |
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The Unending Constant (2025) |
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| Christopher Banyas |
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In the kingdom of K where math is used to assign careers to children before they can even walk, generations of "Kalculators" are given the job of running the Perimetros machine which computes sequential... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-08-27 08:01:24 |
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The Symbol of Darkness: A Tale of an Unknown Quantity (1849) |
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| Anonymous |
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Set in the Empire of the Grand Quadratic and filled with dark and bellicose imagery, this is one of those stories where the characters are themselves mathematical objects:
There
were the warlike Symbols,... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-08-25 16:25:54 |
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The Delta Function [La función delta] (1981) |
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| Rosa Montero |
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This Spanish novel addresses themes of sex and love, life and death, feminism and fame. To most readers, one of the most interesting thing about the book is its dual narrative, alternating between Lucia... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-08-23 19:12:33 |
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The Mathematician (2021) |
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| Alexander McCall Smith |
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Arthur is a young prodigy who amazes teachers with his mathematical ability, but is unusually solitary. While studying math at Cambridge University he becomes friends with the much more sociable Hugh,... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-08-21 22:24:09 |
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Hot in the City (2025) |
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| Samantha Hunter |
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Della Clark is a Columbia University math professor who thinks she has met "mister right" on an airplane, and knows exactly how unlikely that is:
Fellow mathematicians had posited that the chances... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-08-15 16:20:36 |
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To Rise No More (2016) |
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| Marie Brennan |
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This story combines the familiar tale of Ada Lovelace meeting Charles Babbage and discussing his difference engine with that of a younger Ada conversing with a fairy about using mathematics to create wings... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-08-09 19:35:44 |
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Memory Becomes You (2020) |
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| Sharon Lax |
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After her death, the spirit of a doctor visits her husband as he works on his math research, recalling key moments from their life together. He cannot see, feel, or hear her, but seems to know that she... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-07-10 16:10:50 |
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Passing Through (2003) |
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| Robert Weinberg |
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This 21st Century homage to H.P. Lovecraft features math professor Arthur Hilton:
"Yes, the same Hilton who is the world-famous mathematician
Miskatonic is so proud to claim as a member of their staff.... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-07-09 15:23:01 |
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