[HN Gopher] Best Mathematical Science Fiction Books
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       Best Mathematical Science Fiction Books
        
       Author : RafelMri
       Score  : 18 points
       Date   : 2024-02-10 11:07 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (best-sci-fi-books.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (best-sci-fi-books.com)
        
       | jjgreen wrote:
       | See also https://mathoverflow.net/questions/101644/
        
       | purplejacket wrote:
       | I remember in the early 2000s reading a short story collection, a
       | sci-fi book in the nanotech subgenre. One of the stories had
       | something to do with organisms that would search for newer axiom
       | systems in which they could thrive, somehow the more interesting,
       | or rich, axiom systems being the ones that would give better
       | survival odds. Does anyone remember the particulars of this
       | story? I've been wanting to reread it for some time, but haven't
       | been able to locate it.
        
         | Jtsummers wrote:
         | Not a short story, but possibly _Permutation City_ by Egan?
        
         | twic wrote:
         | Sounds like Greg Egan, but I don't recognise that particular
         | story. If you don't get a result here, try a story
         | identification question on Stack Exchange, the residents there
         | are amazing at this:
         | 
         | https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/story-ident...
        
         | A_D_E_P_T wrote:
         | This sounds like the book: https://isfdb.org/cgi-
         | bin/pl.cgi?23392
         | 
         | The story is almost certainly Stephen Baxter's _The Logic
         | Pool_.
        
       | enasterosophes wrote:
       | Interesting that they included _Cryptonomicon_ , which is
       | arguably more about IT than mathematics, but they failed to
       | include Stephenson's _Anathem_ [1]: a book about people who live
       | in monasteries called  "maths" [2], who spend their whole lives
       | doing mathematics (including at least one scene where the monks
       | demonstrate a basic proof to a novice), in a book which is at its
       | core an apology for mathematical realism, and approaches Platonic
       | metaphysics through a mathematical lens.
       | 
       | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathem
       | 
       | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matha
        
       | YoumuChan wrote:
       | Definitely not the best, but the most mathematical fiction book
       | might go to _Surreal Numbers: How Two Ex-Students Turned On to
       | Pure Mathematics and Found Total Happiness_ by of course no other
       | than Donald Knuth.
       | 
       | And you could put _The Part-Time Parliament_ by Leslie Lamport
       | near that if you stretch it.
        
       | motohagiography wrote:
       | math as a plot device is difficult as anything other than a
       | macguffin, and then even if you did manage to create a
       | popularized understanding of a concept, the backlash about
       | calling it misleading, and to discourage people from reading it,
       | would overpower it.
       | 
       | its why you dont write music for people who make music, there are
       | too few of them to bother pleasing and most will just talk about
       | how you dont know what youre doing and their own basement project
       | is superior. the dearth of mathematical fiction could also be
       | attributed to successful writers knowing better than to write for
       | insufferable readers.
        
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       (page generated 2024-02-11 23:00 UTC)