19/04/2023

Folha: "In literature, mathematics is a weapon of seduction"

O escritor Dostoiévski pelo pintor russo Vasily Perov / Reprodução

Reproduction of Marcelo Viana's column in Folha de S. Paulo.

I wrote here last week that references to mathematics in literary works are far more frequent than one might imagine. Let's look at a few more examples.

The Frenchman Georges Perec (1936–1982) is one of the leading figures in the literary research group OuLiPo (short for Workshop of Potential Literature, in French), formed by writers and mathematicians who propose to liberate writing, in a seemingly contradictory way, by subjecting it to different types of restrictions.

In 1978, Perec was awarded the Prix Médicis for " Life: A User's Manual , " in which he describes with dizzying detail a Parisian building and its contents. Among other original features, the narrative moves from one room to another according to the movement of a knight on a chessboard: one step in one direction, two in the orthogonal direction. The mathematical study of the knight's movement was initiated in the West by none other than Leonhard Euler, but it dates back to the 9th century in India .

At the end of the mystery novel " The Thin Man, " published in 1934 by the American Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961), detective Nick Charles and his wife, Nora, discuss the difference between theory and practice in police investigations. "When murders are committed by mathematicians, you can solve them using math," Nick states, adding, "but in most cases, they aren't, and this one we just solved certainly wasn't."

Mathematics is also useful in the art of seduction. At least that's what the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881) implies in his masterpiece "Crime and Punishment".

In the book, Dmitry Razumihin talks to Dr. Zossimóv about a lady they are both interested in. "She doesn't care if it's me or you, as long as someone sits next to her and sighs. Look, you're good at math and you're currently working on the subject. Start by teaching her integral calculus! By my soul, I'm not kidding, it will be the same to her. She'll look at you in awe and sigh for a year."

Thomasina Coverly, the protagonist of the play "Arcadia," published in 1993 by the English playwright Tom Stoppard (1937), is a precocious teenager with knowledge and ideas about mathematics and other sciences far beyond her age.

To read the full text, visit the newspaper's website.