53
votes
Accepted
Has a Star Wars character ever been told the odds and not gone on to beat them?
In the Last Jedi,
The odds of such a plan succeeding is logically very low, since security is a vital part of any military operation. It must have been statistically inconceivable that people could ...
- 999
49
votes
Asimov story about a man who can do calculations on paper
Isaac Asimov, as you surmised. "The Feeling of Power".
In the distant future, humans live in a computer-aided society and have forgotten the fundamentals of mathematics, including even the ...
- 11.4k
36
votes
Has a Star Wars character ever been told the odds and not gone on to beat them?
Short answer: plenty of them. They did not live to tell the story.
Or they were smart enough not to try, considering the odds.
The most obvious one is when
Tarkin disregarded an officer's warning that ...
- 13k
36
votes
Accepted
90s (or earlier) short story concerning two mathematicians and "dark numbers"
I wonder if this is "The Masters" collected in Ursula Le Guin's The Wind's Twelve Quarters?
There are no "dark numbers", but there are "black numbers" (i.e. numbers represented using Arabic numerals) ...
- 22.6k
21
votes
Accepted
A short story where popularising math leads to people doing math like "muzak"
A New Golden Age by Rudy Rucker? See Mathematical Fiction for a summary. A few of the details don't match but most of it does:
“The music …” he began. “The music most people listen to is not good.”
I ...
- 24.1k
13
votes
Accepted
Book about person using logic to leave our world and enter enter magical one
Aha, it was The Mathematics of Magic, the second novella in the Incomplete Enchanter series. In order to impress the wizard Dolon, Reed Chalmers tries to summon a dragon:
The oyster-colored smoke of ...
- 143k
12
votes
Is the audience laughing at Dr Alexander Murry's presentation?
Dr. Murry is being laughed at because, by any reckoning, he is talking nonsense
Dr. Murry is presenting to a group of scientists, many of whom are likely physicists, and he is essentially claiming ...
- 547
11
votes
Is there any mention of mathematicians in Westeros?
The words "math, maths, or mathematics" do not appear in the books. I did a text search on my e-books to confirm this and other mentions as noted below.
Most of the time when referring to ...
10
votes
Accepted
Story with continued fraction formula
Probably "Gomez", a 1954 novelette by C. M. Kornbluth, available at Project Gutenberg Canada. The image below is from New Worlds Science Fiction #32, February 1955 (available at the Internet ...
- 171k
8
votes
Accepted
Aliens with innate mathematical ability
Kudos to user14111 for providing the key to cracking this problem by directing me to the Mathematical Fiction site. The various search terms I tried did not give anything useful so eventually I ...
- 72.1k
8
votes
Story about extraterrestrial slug trying to communicate
Good afternoon! I am a teacher who first encountered this short story as part of a literature class at the University of Minnesota around 2000/2001. I continue to use it with my 6th and 7th graders. I ...
- 131
7
votes
Has a Star Wars character ever been told the odds and not gone on to beat them?
Are there any examples of a character failing to do something after being told how unlikely it is that they'll be able to do it successfully?
Surely this has to be a definitive example.
Obi-Wan ...
- 21.1k
6
votes
Accepted
Hopeful sci-fi book where humans are immortal, and both they and crabs love mathematics
I'm not sure about any of the following.
This might be Incandescence (2008) by Greg Egan. There's two parallel plots. One is a crazily high-tech civilisation of humans and many other species, rather ...
- 1,922
5
votes
Accepted
Story with the continuum hypothesis at the end
"Diabologic" by Eric Frank Russell.
Previously identified as the answer to Funny short story on man and insect that land on new planet and irritate war-loving inhabitants
The ending you are ...
- 118k
5
votes
Do we ever see anyone perform a mathematical calculation with magic in Harry Potter?
We don't actually see it, no.
But there is a numbers-related subject that Hermione claims is better than divination: Arithmancy.
On Pottermore it's defined as "a magical discipline that studies the ...
- 4,540
4
votes
Do we ever see anyone perform a mathematical calculation with magic in Harry Potter?
While we don't ever see a specific person perform this calculation with magic, I would assume that the House points are calculated by magic. Consider that the House points are displayed in hourglasses ...
- 45k
3
votes
Do we ever see anyone perform a mathematical calculation with magic in Harry Potter?
I'm not sure about calculations but in Hogwarts they measure using their hands.
Potions class uses scales to measure the ingredients. There is a quote where someone from the trio balances the scales ...
- 2,618
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