Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal Issue 7 Article 7 4-1-1992 Mathematical References in Literature John S. Lew IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/hmnj Part of the Mathematics Commons Recommended Citation Lew, John S. (1992) "Mathematical References in Literature," Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal: Iss. 7, Article 7. Available at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/hmnj/vol1/iss7/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Claremont at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MATHEMATICAL REFERENCES IN LITERATURE John S. Lew Mathematical Sciences Department,IBM Research Division IBM T. J. Watson Research Center. Yorktown Heights, NY TABLE OF CONTENTS printed considerable science fiction. I had no com­ plaint about that. since previously I had read most of I. INTRODUCI10N his selections in that area; but Iremarkedthat Fadiman 2. COLLECI10NS too had overlooked well-known things. items that 3. NOVELS should not have escaped a literary personage. I began 4. PLAYS remembering more carefully what I would have cho­ 5. GENERAL NONFICTION AND sen instead. SHORT STORIES 6. REMARKS ON OTHERS' VIEWS OF Fortunately, this secret contest with my father MATHEMATICS and Mr. Fadiman never caught the attention of a 7. SCIENCEACTIONSHORTSTORIES psychoanalyst. At some point I began recording my 8. POEMS finds on index cards. In the 1970 's I transferred my 9. REAL MATHEMATICIANS IN growing list to a computer file. standardized the refer­ LITERARY WORKS ences, and began inviting others' contributions. The 10. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS core is still my own curiosity. but this bibliography II. ALMS now includes many suggestions, and its final part 12. SONGS names all those who helped me. I thank them all here. 13. SOURCES Some are eminentscholars. Someare personal friends. One is my wife, who contributed her knowledge of 1. INTRODUCTION o>~. science fiction - and her professional services as a librarian. Manyyearsago,myfather, anFruary, began collecting references to actuaries in literature. Despite this long quest, 1cherish no thought that None ofhis material saw print until much later (E. my list approachescompleteness.It has gained breadth A. Lew 1968); but well before this, from my by swallowing several other lists, but still it reflects college reading, I had begun to find things he had only my discoveries and those offinitely many other overlooked. (This disappointed me; one expects people, none of whom can possibly have read every­ one's father to be omniscient.) thing. Indeed, I shall be most grateful if those who study this accumulation, and who have funher pro­ Then, a few years after my graduation, the posals. will write and tell me. But first they should eminent critic Clifton Fadiman published two consider the following paragraphs. To limit this bib­ anthologies, "Fantasia Mathematica" (1958) and liography, and avoid listing every old book that con­ "The Mathematical Magpie" (1962), containing tains a mathematical term, I have adopted my own short stories, poems, and other literary excerpts private.arbitrary, and doubtless wrongheadedcriteria. with mathematical references. These books re- Thus itmayinterest both casual readers and prospective 26 HMN Journal #7 contributors to know just what I claim here to primarily works with more ambitious goals or bet­ include, or not to include. ter-known authors. Indeed, in the 19th century, the Britishjournal"Punch" and itscompetitorspublished Many distinguished mathematicians have untold volumes oflight verse. Thus. ifone allowed produced essays or books giving broad views of this genre. then , conscientiously, one would need to their subject. or fine examples of its discoveries. or search these old journals for versified British aca­ popularintroductions to its study. My office shelves demic humor (or humour) on mathematical topics. hold numerous such works, and I would neverclaim Having collected this material, one would need also to equal these -butmy listdoes not includethem. I do to decide how much was worth listing. (Once. years not disparage the writers; in their prose style, they ago, I wrote a perfect Italian sonnet on the definition need take second place to no other profession. But, ofcontinuity, but ajoumal editor declared it totally in my bibliography, I have been collecting mostly unfunny.) I prefer to avoid the light-verse category reactions to mathematics by people other than its ratherthancontemplate such a bibliographicproject. practitioners. Here I say "mostly" because now and Any volunteers? then mathematiciansmakereference to their domain in some traditional literary form: novel, short story, Through such considerations, I have preferred poem. Of these, a few are too good to omit; so I list to setrulesfor inclu sion (and subrules for exceptions) the professionals when they do non-professional that serve my purpose, then toinrrudefewerpersonal things.Thus Iadmit Bertrand Russell's little fantasy judgements of merit in adding things to the list. "The Mathematician's Nightmare"; after all. its Thus, inclu sion does not always mean quality. Most author only won the Nobel Prize in Literature. emphatically, thisisnot a "Recommended Reading" list. Some works here I would praise whetheror not Likewise, biographers have produced some they had mathematical references; others may have fine lives ofeminent mathematicians. but collecting little value except to illustrate a theme, and my these would dictate a quite different area for my parenthetical remarks on them may betray a lack of search; so I omit them . Again, I make a small admiration. Still, I do not altogether reject subjec­ exception: I allow autobiographies. Even dedicated tivity . From major literary figures I admit rather professionals may offer something beyond techni­ trivial items (though, in Dante and Shakespeare, cal matters when describing their own lives. In even such brief remarks have some.point.) On the particular, IadmitSofyaKovalevskaya's"A Russian other hand. scientific mumbo-jumbo is an standard Childhood", a small work whose narrative, at least elementofsciencefiction. Hence generallyIexclude in translation. recalls the great Russian novels ofthe such fiction when it has no funher mathematical 19th century. relevance. thoughI bendthis rule slightlyto include marginal items when a prior source has mentioned When fans ofpopular music buy a respectable them. I ttyto incorporate my sources; the last section quantity of some classical recording, the music acknowledges them all. business calls this work a "crossover". and similarly when a popular recording achieves a more serious The Table of Contents shows my subdivision following. In something like this sense. I have been of this list. Then a short initial section notes a few hunting "crossovers". However, my objective needs anthologies that contain many later items. items a few more qualifications. some of which are otherwise not too accessible. Later entries cite these books in giving published Inhistwoanthologies.CliftonFadiman reprints sources. However, I have usuallytried to find earlier considerable light verse on mathematical concepts. published versions. Thus entries for some works In my poetry section, I exclude these and collect may mention an original date and a later reprinting, HMN Joumaf#7 27 oran early source and an anthology. Here "partly in Late in the 18th century, important European Collection X" means that I have read a more com­ writers came to feel that rationalism left tOO Jittle pleteversion, while"excerptin ... .. means that I have space for human emotions. Admittedly, not every­ not. I have lumped general non-fiction and short thingcalled rational makes sense oreverhas; but, as stories because some works straddle the boundary; a conscious estrangement, rather than mutual igno­ otherwise,my categoriesshouldneed no explanation. rance, the famous "two-cultures" spli t may be little older than Rousseau. To Blake, Newton the hero As its title suggests, this list collects primarily became Newton the villain; later this view, much mathematical references in printed material. How­ sophisticated, reached the universities, where it ever, two late sections gather a few songs and films. promptedG. H. Hardy's 1930's remark on the word Despite video rental s, a longer list of relevant old "intellectual": "There seems 10 be a new defi nition films requireseitherlifelongdedication to the movies, which certainly d oesn't include Rutherford or a good bit of luck, or funber help from others. For Eddington or Dirac or Adrian or me." No doubt this project it was my luck that, some years ago at Blake's view helped animate the F. R. Leavis 2:00 a.m., a TV station in my area chose to broadcast counterattack when C. P. Snow, in 1959, first de­ the film "Are You With W". Otherwise I might have plored the separation of ..the two cultures". Poetry, known it only from my father' s memories of the for Leavis, was the true source of"finer awareness"; play. With luck , readers may have encountered to him, supposedly , the literature alone ofa time and other films suitable for my list. place could emtxxly the important aspects of its culture. Yes, but what does it all mean? I claim that the cited works dramatize some Western intellectual My list documents this split, but