
Math in Literature: Depicting the Collapse of Certainty
Ever since Isaac Newton’s discoveries, mathematics had been viewed as an absolute bedrock on which we could construct a completely firm structure of understanding. New findings in the early 20th century, though, shattered this bedrock. Just as literature reveals much about collective cultural anxieties, so the depiction of math in literature, particularly Alice in Wonderland and Flatland, illuminates the resulting chaos as our fundamental understanding of reality was called into question. […]