Maths in Science Fiction?

[Serendipity]

I know of a few stories where maths features as the story's driver. A lot have been collected into Clifton Fadiman's Fantasia Mathematica which was published in 1959!

What stories have been published that hinge on mathematics since then (other than relying super-computers and AIs)?

 

[Venusian Broon]

Mathenauts Edited by Rudy Rucker from 1987 - 23 short stories.

Not saying his work always hinges on mathematics but from my reading of Greg Egan, he always encroached somewhat on that territory.

 

[mosaix]

The Cold Equations.

A short story that was rejected by Analog until the maths was properly reflected in the sad ending.

 

[Biskit]

John Meaney's early novels tended to have a bit of maths buried where you'd hardly notice it.

 

[Serendipity]

Thank you all. Please keep the suggestions coming... depending how things go, there may be method in my madness in asking such a question....

 

[JimC]

Why did they start calling it maths instead of math?
In the US, about 85% of people still say math (including all of us older folks)

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

Why did they start calling it maths instead of math?
In the US, about 85% of people still say math (including all of us older folks)

It's a UK vs US thing.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

"The Altar of the Random Gods" by Adrian Rogoz, in here: View from Another Shore

 

[farntfar]

Not a whole story, but So long and thanks for all the fish, by Douglas Adams, does rely on a spaceship called the Bistromath, which works by exploiting the curious,(and space-time bending) mathematics of sharing out the bill (check) in restaurants when several people, who all ate different things, are involved.

On the other question, I've always assumed that the difference between maths and math was in the way that each country uses contractions. Mathemetics gets contracted with or without the final S.
In the same way, the English would contract artificial inteligences to A.I.s but the French would use les I.A. (Intelmigences artificielles) without the s. (Similar plurals MRIs becomes les IRM etc **)
(** more confusing there, because the s really goes on I (images) rather than magnetic, but I digress. Do Americans say MRI in the plural?))

 

[mosaix]

Why did they start calling it maths instead of math?
In the US, about 85% of people still say math (including all of us older folks)

I think it’s the other way around, Jim.

Why did they start calling it math instead of maths?

 

[paranoid marvin]

Maths is short for mathematics? So (presumably) math is short for mathematic - which means nothing.

 

[Ori Vandewalle]

Not saying his work always hinges on mathematics but from my reading of Greg Egan, he always encroached somewhat on that territory.

Well, he certainly does math when writing his stories.

Neal Stephenson, too. Anathem has mathematical interludes and appendices.

 

[JimC]

"I think it’s the other way around, Jim.
Why did they start calling it math instead of maths? "

It was called math when I started school 71 years ago.
Maths didn't start appearing in the US until the last 5 or 10 years.

 

[CTRandall]

One of the plot threads in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle is a fictionalized rivalry between Leibniz and Newton over the invention of calculus. Stephenson doesn't actually go into the math(s) but he doesn't shy away from technical talk. (The Baroque Cycle is three books. Newton appears in all of them but I'm not sure which one has the biggest role for Leibniz.)

 

[Don]

Math plays a role in Asimov's Foundation and Kingsbury's Psychohistorical Crisis.
Fifth-dimensional mathematics has a supporting role in Perry Rhodan's search for the Wanderer.