Trip the Math Fantastic

Within these pages, you will journey with mathematicians who see the world in unique ways, yet struggle with the familiar problems of anxiety, shame, loneliness, and a driving desire to do the right thing. These are the heroes of Trip the Math Fantastic.Evelyn--a retired astronaut and mathematician--faces her worst fears to guide humankind's last attempt at redemption on a journey that will outlast every earthly trace of human civilization. Her story takes place four and a half million...
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Within these pages, you will journey with mathematicians who see the world in unique ways, yet struggle with the familiar problems of anxiety, shame, loneliness, and a driving desire to do the right thing. These are the heroes of Trip the Math Fantastic.Evelyn--a retired astronaut and mathematician--faces her worst fears to guide humankind's last attempt at redemption on a journey that will outlast every earthly trace of human civilization. Her story takes place four and a half million years ago, during the first age of homo sapiens, but her legacy permeates the modern age through myths and legends, through religion and history, and out into the galaxy.Nina--an eleven-year-old survivor of crustal collapse and worldwide flooding--struggles desperately to preserve an ocean of knowledge inside her brain for the next generation by becoming her life's dream; a math teacher. Ever-dwindling cities of genetically engineered algae and seaweed drift on the world ocean, enduring annual cyclones that swell to monstrous proportions. Every physical object is prone to water damage or sinking beneath the waves at any moment. All Nina has is what she can remember--and teach.Clifford--a down-on-his-luck physicist and mathematician--discovers a way to communicate with beings in another universe, beings with knowledge of past, present, and future events across the multiverse. From a secret hiding place--through an elaborate world-wide communications network and a well-endowed foundation--he uses that knowledge to ease the suffering of those in need. In a surprising revelation, Clifford learns a fundamental lesson about truth, knowledge, and human nature.Moses Nebogipfel, a theoretical physicist, faces a persistent alien threat and a difficult job working for a tyrannical military general. Locked away in a low-rent apartment at the end of time, he solves the greatest equation of his life, with the most ominous solution imaginable. Moses must make a soul-wrenching decision on behalf of the entire universe, one that can never be undone.