Imaginary Numbers: An Anthology of Marvelous Mathematical Stories, Diversions, Poems, and Musings PDF
Preview Imaginary Numbers: An Anthology of Marvelous Mathematical Stories, Diversions, Poems, and Musings
title: Imaginary Numbers : An Anthology of Marvelous Mathematical Stories, Diversions, Poems, and Musings author: Frucht, William publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (US) isbn10 | asin: 0471332445 print isbn13: 9780471332442 ebook isbn13: 9780585282312 language: English subject Mathematics--Literary collections. publication date: 1999 lcc: PN6071.M3I47 1999eb ddc: 808.8/0356 subject: Mathematics--Literary collections. Page iii Imaginary Numbers An Anthology of Marvelous Mathematical Stories, Diversions, Poems, and Musings Edited by William Frucht Page iv This book is printed on acid-free paper. Permission acknowledgments can be found on pages 325327. Copyright © 1999 by William Frucht. All rights reserved Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4744. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, (212) 850-6011, fax (212) 850-6008, email: [email protected]. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. ISBN 0-471-33244-5 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Page v Contents Preface ix 1 The Form of Space 1 Italo Calvino 2 A New Golden Age 11 Rudy Rucker 3 A Serpent with Corners (from A Tangled Tale) 21 Lewis Carroll 4 A Positive Reminder 27 J. A. Lindon 5 How Kazir Won His Wife 29 Raymond Smullyan 6 11 May 1905 (from Einstein's Dreams) 39 Alan Lightman 7 Why Does Disorder Increase in the Same Direction of Time As That in Which the Universe Expands? 43 Roald Hoffman Page vi 8 The Golden Man 45 Philip K. Dick 9 The Morphology of the Kirkham Wreck 79 Hilbert Schenck 10 Resolution of the Paradox: A Philosophical Puppet Play 111 Abner Shimony 11 Parallelism 113 Piet Hein 12 Prelude . . . (from Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid) 115 Douglas Hofstadter 13 The Third Sally, or The Dragons of Probability (from The Seven Sallies of Trurl and Klapaucius) 127 Stanislaw Lem 14 Concerning Irregular Figures (from Flatland) 143 Edwin Abbott Abbott 15 The Definition of Love 149 Andrew Marvell 16 On Fiddib Har (from The Planiverse: Computer Contact with a Two-Dimensional World) 151 A. K Dewdney 17 The Church of the Fourth Dimension 169 Martin Gardner Page vii 18 The Extraordinary Hotel, or the Thousand and First Journey of Ion the Quiet 181 Stanislaw Lem 19 Ten Weary, Footsore Travelers 191 Anonymous 20 From The Policeman's Beard Is Half-Constructed 193 Racter 21 Burning Chrome 195 William Gibson 22 Gonna Roll the Bones 217 Fritz Leiber 23 A Word on Statistics 241 Wislawa Szymborska 24 Giovanni and His Wife 245 Tommaso Landolfi 25 The Private War of Private Jacob 251 Joe Haldeman 26 The Library of Babel 257 Jorge Luis Borges 27 Enantiomorphosis (A Natural History of Mirrors) 267 Christian Bök 28 Schwarzschild Radius 275 Connie Willis 29 Letter from Caroline Herschel (17501848) 295 Siv Cedering Page viii 30 From We 299 Yevgeny Zamyatin 31 The Garden of Time 313 J. G. Ballard Acknowledgments 323 Permission Acknowledgments 325 Page ix Preface In fifth grade I was cast as the Mock Turtle in my school's production of Alice in Wonderland. My mother was supposed to make my costume. Like many suburban matrons of the time, she owned a sewing machine but had only the vaguest idea how to use it. She managed to make me a light green hood and some little boot-like things for my feet (Mrs. Hackel, one of the teachers organizing the show, had to tell her to turn them inside out to hide the stitching), and the local A&S cheerfully sold her a pair of green tights and a green turtleneck shirt. But she was utterly defeated by the task of making a shell. So, just before the final dress rehearsal, after a whispered conversation with the director, Mrs. Hackel hurried off and returned fifteen minutes later with my turtle shell. I found it distinctly disappointing: a flat, vaguely oval piece of corrugated brown cardboard, with livid green tortoise markings painted on one side, an elastic strap stapled on the back for hanging around one's neck, and down at the bottom a little brown tail, perhaps five inches long. It was not mentioned to me that this costume had a history. The school, one of those sprawling one-story brick structures built in the late fifties to warehouse young baby boomers, was at the time less than ten years old. Some years before, when it was very new, the faculty had decided to introduce themselves to the local parents by putting on a show. My shell had been worn by a
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