The Wild Numbers: A Novel - Hardcover

Schogt, Philibert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1568581661 ISBN 13: 9781568581668

Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2000

Synopsis

Isaac Swift is a mathematician - not an outstanding one, but a competent, unextraordinary pencil-pusher. And like all mathematicians, he's constantly reminded that it's the prodigies of his profession who advance human knowledge. The rest just try to understand. Now Isaac thinks he's found the solution to "Beauregard's Wild Number Problem," a puzzle that has stumped savants for centuries. And Dimitri, his mentor at the university, once a near-great mathematician himself, thinks Isaac is correct. If so, Isaac will have elevated himself to the ranks of the immortals. But now accusations of plagiarism arise, and the threat of violence that may not stop at the intellectual level looms over the university.

About this title

Review:

Mathematical insight is like an assassin's bullet--you don't know it's there until it hits you. Dutch philosopher and mathematician Philibert Schogt shows us the workings of the math-obsessed mind in his short novel The Wild Numbers. Following the mental and physical ramblings of the unspectacular Professor Isaac Swift as he comes closer to solving a beautifully thorny problem left behind generations ago by an eccentric French genius, the book cleverly dissects the forces driving mathematical creativity. Swift just barely balances his overpowering mental impulses, often likened to a "buzzing in his head," with his physical and social needs. Those familiar with academic math departments will find Schogt's eccentric crank Leonard Vale entertaining and all too true:

The pages crawled with incomprehensible equations in his familiar scratchy handwriting. He always threw in as many integral signs, sigmas, and other mathematical symbols as possible, reminding me of the calculations of comic book geniuses. Here and there he had left a clearing in the dense jungle of formulae, in which he had written profound aphorisms, underlined three times and followed by three exclamation marks.

Vale becomes a serious problem when he accuses Swift of plagiarizing his work, driving the novel toward its dark conclusion. Nonmathematical readers shouldn't fear--the few equations are simply illustrations of Swift's thinking, and no advanced knowledge is required to follow the plot. Contrasting the flash of insight with the dull glow of truth, The Wild Numbers illuminates the plight of a mathematical mind stuck in a real world. --Rob Lightner

About the Author:

Philibert Schogt holds degrees in philosophy and mathematics. The Wild Numbers is his first novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1568581661
• ISBN 13: 9781568581668
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160