|
Fictional
Maths and Science Books
Ship Fever
Andrea Barrett
I probably would never
have read about (or even heard of) Andrea Barrett’s Ship Fever
if I had not been asked to review it for Radio 4’s Saturday
Review. It is a brilliant collection of short stories set
against the backdrop of science in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Barrett’s stories explore themes of
evolution, emancipation, the motivation of scientists, and the
acknowledgment of failure. Ship Fever won a National Book
Award in America, but has received little attention in
Britain.
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
The Wild
Numbers
Philibert Schogt
Isaac Swift is
a mathematics professor peacefully getting on with his life
when he suddenly proves the formidable Wild Number Problem.
But ecstasy turns into agony when Leonard Vale enters the
story with accusations of plagiarism.
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
The
Parrot’s Theorem
Denis
Guedj
Denis Guedj attempts to do
for mathematics what ‘Sophie’s World’ did for philosophy.
Find
out more...
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
Uncle Petros and Golbach's
Conjecture
Apostolos Doxiadis
Petros’s life has been dominated by one all-consuming
passion, namely a desire to prove the infamous Goldbach conjecture.
His story told from the point of view of his nephew, a budding
mathematician who views his uncle’s obsession with a mixture
of admiration and melancholy. Find
out more...
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
Cryptonomicon
Neal
Stephenson
Neal Stephenson is a cult writer with a
fanatic following. Cryptonomicon is a massive novel
(918 pages) that stretches from the story of World War II
codebreakers to today's data havens.
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
Enigma
Robert Harris
If you have
seen the movie with Kate Winslett, then you might like to read
the book it was based on. Although a novel, it gives a great
sense of what it was like to break codes at Bletchley
Park in the Second World War.
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
Flatland
Edwin A.
Abbott
This
classic fantasy novel published in 1880 explores a flat
world where all the inhabitants live in two physical
dimensions. The book follows a Flatlands dweller who
shockingly discovers the existence of a third
dimension.
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com. |
