Fantasia Mathematica

Clifton Fadiman's classic collection of mathematical stories, essays and anecdotes first published in 1958, is now back in print. Ranging from the poignant to the comical to the surreal, these selections include writing by Aldous Huxley, Martin Gardner, H.G. Wells, George Gamow, G.H. Hardy, Plato, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and many others. Humorous and mysterious, this collection will please mathematicians and everyone else who loves a good story full of stimulating ideas.

Introduction by CLIFTON FADIMAN

xiii

1. ODD NUMBERS

3

(60)

Young Archimedes The deeply moving classic about an Italian peasant boy who might have been a mathematical genius

3

(32)

ALDOUS HUXLEY

Pythagoras and the Psychoanalyst Why the Pythagorean theorem was never found.

35

(2)

ARTHUR KOESTLER

Mother and the Decimal Point She tries to find out who is in change of it.

37

(3)

RICHARD LLEWELLYN

Jurgen Proves It by Mathematics He demonstrates for the beautiful Queen Dolores nine deeply penetrating propositions.

40

(6)

JAMES BRANCH CABELL

Peter Learns Arithmetic How to be sure that 3 plus 4 always equal 7.

46

(3)

H. G. WELLS

Socrates and the Slave In which the Socratic method proves that an ignorant boy really knew all about the Pythagorean theorem all the time. All he had to do was remember it.

49

(8)

PLATO

The Death of Archimedes What really happened when that Roman centurion found the mathematician of Syracuse at work on circles.

57

(6)

KAREL CAPEK

II. IMAGINARIES

63

(198)

The Devil and Simon Flagg Mephisto in search of a mathematical truth.

63

(7)

ARTHUR PORGES

And He Built a Crooked House Adventures in fourth-dimensional architecture.

70

(21)

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

Inflexible Logic Remember those six chimpanzees with six typewriters...? Well, here they start writing.

91

(8)

RUSSELL MALONEY

No-Sided Professor What happens when a professor of topology is punctuated by a strip-tease act.

99

(11)

MARTIN GARDNER

Superiority Showing how, in a war of the universe, it's the inferior science that may win.

110

(11)

ARTHUR C. CLARKE

The Mathematical Voodoo How to make a mathematical genius by magic.

121

(17)

H. NEARING, JR.

Expedition If you fill one spaceship with twenty-nine women and one man, how many ...?

138

(2)

FREDRIC BROWN

The Captured Cross-Section In which a young mathematician goes chasing his fiancee into the fourth dimension.

140

(15)

MILES J. BREUER, M.D.

A. Botts and the Moebius Strip Showing how a simple demonstration in topology saved the lives of several Australian soldiers.

155

(16)

WILLIAM HAZLETT UPSON

God and the Machine On the relative inhumanity of electronic computers.

171

(11)

NIGEL BALCHIN

The Tachypomp From 1873 comes a device for achieving infinite speed.

182

(15)

EDWARD PAGE MITCHELL

The Island of Five Colors A tale in which five countries apparently really had common borders--a topological impossibility.

196

(26)

MARTIN GARDNER

The Last Magician and how he faced a mathematical problem that Houdini was born too early to solve.

211

(11)

BRUCE ELLIOTT

A Subway Named Moebius In which a Harvard professor of mathematics is called upon to solve a mysterious disaster in Boston's under-ground transportation system.

222

(15)

A. J. DEUTSCH

The Universal Library If every book that could possibly be printed in one language were aligned in a row, how long would it take to walk past them?

237

(7)

KURD LASSWITZ

Postscript to "The Universal Library" In which the translator of the previous story gives not only the history of the problem but other solutions as well.

244

(4)

WILLY LEY

John Jones's Dollar Showing how universal socialism was attained through a simple problem in sixth-grade arithmetic.

248

(13)

HARRY STEPHEN KEELER

III. FRACTIONS

261

A New Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens

261

(5)

ARTHUR T. QUILLER-COUCH

The Unfortunate Topologist

266

(1)

CYRIL KORNBLUTH

There Once Was a Breathy Baboon...

267

(1)

SIR ARTHUR EDDINGTON

Yet What Are All...

268

(1)

LEWIS CARROLL

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

269

(1)

RALPH BARTON

Mathematical Love From The Definition of Love

270

(1)

ANDREW MARVELL

The Circle

271

(1)

CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

The Circle and the Square From The Honest Whore

272

(1)

THOMAS DEKKER

Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare

273

(1)

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

Euclid

274

(1)

VACHEL LINDSAY

To Think That Two and Two Are Four

275

(1)

A. E. HOUSMAN

The Uses of Mathematics From Hudibras

276

(1)

SAMUEL BUTLER

Arithmetic

277

(1)

CARL SANDBURG

Threes (To Be Sung by Niels Bohr)

278

(1)

JOHN ATHERTON

Plane Geometry

279

(2)

EMMA ROUNDS

He Thought He Saw Electrons Swift

281

(1)

HERBERT DINGLE

Fearsome Fable

282

(1)

BRUCE ELLIOTT

Bertrand Russell's Dream From A Mathematician's Apology

283

(1)

G. H. HARDY

For All Practical Purposes From Through the Mathescope

284

(1)

C. STANLEY OGILVY

Eternity: A Nightmare From Sylvie and Bruno Concluded

285

(1)

LEWIS CARROLL

An Infinity of Guests From One, Two, Three...Infinity

286

(1)

GEORGE GAMOW

From New Pathways in Science

287

(1)

SIR ARTHUR EDDINGTON

No Power on Earth

288

(1)

WILLIAM WHEWELL

(x + 1) From James Russell Lowell

289

(1)

EDGAR ALLAN POE

The Receptive Bosom

290

(1)

EDWARD SHANKS

Leinbach's Proof From Flight into Darkness

291

(1)

ARTHUR SCHNITZLER

Problem from The New Yorker: "Talk of the Town"

292

(1)

A Letter to Tennyson from Mathematical Gazette

293

(1)

A Fable from Mathematical Gazette

294

(1)

There Was a Young Man from Trinity

295

(1)

ANONYMOUS

There Was an Old Man Who Said, "Do"

296

(1)

ANONYMOUS

Relativity

297

(1)

ANONYMOUS

There Was a Young Fellow Named Fisk

298

ANONYMOUS

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