Abstract
This paper will present a selective overview of some uses of mathematics in fiction, expanding and updating Mann (2010), before considering the rather unusual case of Catherine Shaw’s detective novels, set in the late Victorian mathematical community.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bayard, P. (2000). (translated by Carol Cosman) Who Killed Roger Ackroyd: The Murderer Who Eluded Hercule Poirot and Deceived Agatha Christie (Fourth Estate) (originally published in French in 2000).
Bayley, M. (2008). Review of The Indian Clerk. BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics, 23, 197–199.
Bellos, D. (2010). Mathematics, poetry, fiction: The adventure of the Oulipo. BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics, 25, 104–118.
Bloch, W. G. (2008). The unimaginable mathematics of Borges’ library of Babel. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
BSHM (British Society for the History of Mathematics) (n.d), ‘About the society’, www.bshm.ac.uk (consulted 28 June 2014).
Burt, S., & Ellenberg, J. (2003). 20 Questions for Jordan Ellenberg. Rain Taxi, http://www.raintaxi.com/20-questions-for-jordan-ellenberg/ (consulted 28 June 2014).
Chwe, M. S. Y. (2013). Jane Austen: Game Theorist. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Ellenberg, J. (2014). How not to be wrong: The hidden maths of everyday life. Allen Lane.
Gardner, M. (1989). ‘The Oulipo’ and ‘The Oulipo II’, Penrose Tiles to Trapdoor Ciphers. W.H. Freeman.
Gaull, M. (2010). From Tristram Shandy to Bertrand Russell: Fiction and mathematics. BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics, 25, 81–91.
Kanigel, R. (1991). The man who knew infinity: A life of the genius Ramanujan. Boston: Little Brown.
Library of Congress. (n.d.), ‘Library of congress name authority file—Shaw, Catherine, 1961–’, http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2007150507.html, (consulted 28 June 2014).
Mann, T. (2010). From Sylvia Plath’s The bell jar to the bad sex award: A partial account of the uses of mathematics in fiction. BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics, 25, 58–66.
Mann, A. J. S., & Craik, A. D. D. (2011). Scotland: Land of opportunity but few rewards. In R. Flood, A. Rice, & R. Wilson (Eds.), Mathematics in Victorian Britain (pp. 77–101). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Martinez, G. (2012). Borges and mathematics. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press. (originally published in Spanish in 2003).
Mathews, H., Brotchie, A., & Monk, I. (Eds.). (2005). Oulipo compendium. Atlas.
Mathews, H., & White, I. (Eds.). (1995). Oulipo laboratory. Atlas.
Mendick, H. ‘Mathematical popular cultures’, talk from Mathematical Cultures conference III, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBlxlFmGwSQ (consulted 9 November 2014).
Merrell, F. (1991). Unthinking thinking: Jorge Luis Borges, Mathematics, and the New Physics. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press.
Pantsar, M. (2014). ‘The Great Gibberish: Mathematics in Western Popular Culture’, talk from Mathematical Cultures conference III, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcnkbTDt-Bw (consulted 9 November 2014).
Sørensen, H. K. (2014). ‘Narrating Abel: Aesthetics as biography of the mathematical persona in popular culture’, talk from Mathematical Cultures conference III, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtqFd1pKGqs (consulted 9 November 2014).
UCL Library Services. (2011). Francis Galton’s Kantsaywhere, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/special-coll/ksw.shtml, (consulted 28 June 2014).
Wardhaugh, B. (2010). ‘Let us put on the shade of Newton’: Isaac Newton on stage, 1829–2006. BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics, 25, 67–80.
Whitty, R. (2013), Review of Jane Austen: Game Theorist, London Mathematical Society Newsletter 431, pp. 26–27, available at http://newsletter.lms.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/4312.pdf (consulted 9 November 2014).
Wilson, R. (2008). Lewis Carroll in Numberland. Allen Lane.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Mann, T. (2016). Mathematics and Mathematical Cultures in Fiction: The Case of Catherine Shaw. In: Larvor, B. (eds) Mathematical Cultures. Trends in the History of Science. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28582-5_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28582-5_21
Published:
Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28580-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28582-5
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)