NARRATING THE UNDEFINED: A MATH MELODRAMA (THOUGHT) EXPERIMENT
NARRATING THE UNDEFINED: A MATH MELODRAMA (THOUGHT) EXPERIMENT

Summary/Abstract: In this carefully structured short story (1, 2,…..9; 1a, 2a…….9a; 1b, 2b…..9b), Ted Chiang—a computer scientist—combines a story of mathematics (division by zero), a “math melodrama” (prodigy beyond her prime, “undefined” marriage, ambition, frustration, disappointment, depression, attempted suicides), a Biblical exemplum (“believe and do not doubt”), and a thought experiment (“what if arithmetic proved to be inconsistent?” and “empathy was only a masked attempt to heal oneself of one’s past?”); all in all, a narrative that attempts to contain more than it really does and ask more questions than any such scenario could answer.

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