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Science 22 December 2000:
Vol. 290. no. 5500, pp. 2263 - 2267
DOI: 10.1126/science.290.5500.2263
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Books

FICTION:
Rhetoric and the Math Melodrama

A review by David Foster Wallace

The Wild Numbers
Philibert Schogt
Four Walls Eight Windows, New York, 2000. 159 pp. $18. ISBN 1-56858-166-1.

Uncle Petros & Goldbach's Conjecture
Apostolos Doxiadis
Bloomsbury USA, New York, 2000. 219 pp. $23.95. ISBN 1-58234-067-6.

These two recent novels have been translated into English by their authors. They have gained some attention for their depictions of how mathematicians search for mathematical truth. Our reviewer, who finds major shortcomings in both works, discusses them as representatives of a new genre he identifies as "Math Melodrama."
The author's recent works include Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and the eBook Up, Simba!: 7 Days on the Trail of an Anticandidate.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)