MATHEMATICIANS IN SCIENCE FICTION
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Abstract
Centered on the presentation and evaluation of seven entertaining samples of science fiction stories involving mathematicians and amusing mathematical problems, the paper touches on the relation between mathematics and humanities, on the role of mathematics in Science Fiction (with a glimpse at the latter’s difference from classical utopian texts and the current category of “fantasy”), and the bewildering joint occurrence of insightful observations and incredible mathematical blunders in SF literature. Picking up the recent slogan of “half-cultured individuals” (in contrast to the famous “two cultures”), the paper canvasses for a continuation and extension of Knut Radbruch’s pioneering studies on the interplay between mathematics and letters.
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References
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