The surprisingly deep relationship between mathematics and literature

nytimes.com

3 points·mdp2021··3 comments

Full title: "Mathletes and Poets: Allies at Last! // In “Once Upon a Prime” Sarah Hart explores the surprisingly deep relationship between mathematics and literature".

Also noted in The Economist:

> In “Once Upon a Prime”, a book published this week, Sarah Hart explores the links between maths and literature. The author—who in 2020 became the first woman to hold the professorship in geometry at Gresham College in London—argues that paying attention to numbers can open up new meanings in novels and poems. She analyses the role maths plays in literary works such as “Life of Pi” and “Moby Dick”.

...As an aside: interesting: the Economist follows the set-theory consistent rule of putting the punctuation of the hosting paragraph outside the quote marks («In “Once Upon a Prime_”,_ just published this week»), while the New York Times follows the conventional procedure of putting outer punctuation inside quotes («In “Once Upon a Prime_,”_ Sarah Hart explores»).

The difference is English vs American (Chicago Manual of Style) conventions regarding where to put a puntuation mark that follows a quote. American usage goes against reason and includes the punctuation within the quote of which it was not part; it should be abolished!

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