The contest
Breathe, Breathe, Miguel told himself. The room was spacious, but he felt as if the walls were closing in on him, trapping him, preventing him from breathing…
Bide Your Time
Thursday, April 2nd, 2:30pm. A rumpled-looking kid sitting in the middle of the room uneasily raises his hand. “Can you go over problem number thirteen on the…
Subbing
Walking into the math class, the teacher glanced around with some trepidation. Occasionally having to be a substitute had recently become part of his job, but…
"Not For Math!"
“9-1-1, what is your emergency?” The dispatcher clicked his headset. “I need help.” Came the small boy’s voice from the other end. “What’s wrong?” The man’s…
Applied Mathematics
I woke shivering. Lack of water had sent me into bizarre feverish dreams: something about a mysterious man and a secret formula. Then I heard scrabbling and…
47 Minutes with Hugh Vance
Hugh Vance is three-fourths Raskolnikov and four-fifths Sindbad the Sailor. There’s some overlap there, yes. He is also one-sixteenth Cherokee which explains…
Random walk
I know a mathematician’s an unlikely survivor. But it’s not axiomatic. By the time I realized I was in trouble, there was only one way to go: up. I locked the…
Musing on First Contact
“What if I were the person to make extraterrestrial contact?” she asked of her computer screen. It was her favorite part of the day, the time directly after…
Math, Memories, and Hurting People
6 grand had been turned into 4 guns, 2 lbs of explosives, and 200 rounds of ammunition. 38 hours in town so he now had 62 hours before it would be too late…
Elevator
I walk into the elevator. I’m on the sixth floor and in a rush to get home and clear my head. I press the “1” button and assault the “Door Close” button with…
Find The Equation
Before leaving, I stop into the bathroom to splash some cold water in my face. I take a deep, shuddering breath and work the water into my skin. The callouses…
that's one way to get math help
“9-1-1, what is your emergency?” The dispatcher clicked his headset. “I need help.” Came the small boy’s voice from the other end. “What’s wrong?” The man’s…
God's True Word
Patterns swirling in the haze, Pieces, fitting together like clockwork. Colors flying around to music, To beauty, to logic . Rules in the framework of reality…
Math is Out to Get Me
2 plus 2 is... Gah! Idiot numbers, always chasing me around. Yeah I memorized my times tables but that was in fourth grade! *Fourth.* I know enough to get by…
God: Hope He's Into Numbers
I don’t have to go far to find a place to wash the sticky feelings from my mind. You never do in a city this size. Holy water may cleanse the soul, but liquor…
Cartesian Core
Starting bootup sequence... Loading: - english.lang - logic.core - math.core - video.sense - audio.sense - touch.sense - smell.sense - taste.sense …
MMM (continued)
A side ways M what could that mean. I recall seeing it with an ∞ above it and an n=1 below it. It had something to so with sequences and patterns. But the ∞…
MMM (Mystery Math Message)
One day a mysterious message showed up written very small in the lower corner of the chalk boared someone wrote. √-1 2^3 Σ π, and I liked it. No one knew what…