[book_info title=鈥漈he Tenth Muse鈥� author=鈥滳atherine Chung鈥� publisher=鈥滾ittle, Brown鈥� title_link=鈥漢ttps://www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/catherine-chung/the-tenth-muse/9781408709597/鈥漖
鈥淎 mathematical proof is absolute once it has been written and verified,鈥� says Katherine, the narrator of . 鈥淚f the internal logic of a proof holds, it is considered unassailable and true.鈥�
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The book contrasts the axioms of mathematics with the mutability and complexities of life. This is historical rather than speculative fiction, reaching from the present back to World War II and the mid-20th century.
As a child in 1950s America, Katherine is intrigued by nature and space. She annoys a primary school teacher by doing sums in her head, using a time-saving technique used by the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss as a child. (What is the sum of the numbers 1 through 9? 45, Katherine answers quickly, having added up pairs of numbers on opposite sides to give four sets of 10 鈥� 1+9, 2+8 and so on 鈥� and the unpaired 5 in the middle.)
She becomes a mathematician, working on the Riemann hypothesis. Proposed by Bernhard Riemann in 1859, it is one of the most significant unsolved problems in pure mathematics 鈥� one of with a $1 million prize on offer from the Clay Mathematics Institute. The problem, as Katherine puts it, 鈥減redicts a meaningful pattern hidden deep within the seemingly chaotic distribution of prime numbers鈥�.
It also becomes inextricable from the unravelling mystery of Katherine鈥檚 own family history. The search takes her to the University of G枚ttingen in Germany, once a powerhouse of maths at the turn of the 20th century, and later, less salubriously, known for its 鈥済reat purge鈥� of Jewish researchers in the 1930s.
The novel is extensively researched, replete with the lives and work of luminaries such as Srinivasa Ramanujan, Alan Turing, and David Hilbert; the maths and physics it comprises range from the accessible to the esoteric. The characters鈥� dialogue tends towards the novelistic: on occasion, their style of recounting stories is implausibly similar to that of the book鈥檚 narration.
Chung, who has a mathematics degree from the University of Chicago, renders complex concepts with poetic verve. In one salient example, Katherine solves a question that asks how a boy, separated by a lake and ferryman from his lover, can send her a ring. The ferryman travels between them, carrying a lockable box, but steals anything inside it if it鈥檚 left unlocked. The boy and girl each have a lock with a unique key 鈥� so how can the boy send the ring across without it being stolen? The solution (which I won鈥檛 divulge) is elegant, and forms an analogy for public-key cryptography.
The book also highlights the pioneering work of female mathematicians Emmy Noether and Sofia Kovalevskaya. The only woman in many of her university maths classes 鈥� 鈥渁 skirt in a sea of pants鈥� 鈥� Katherine is determined to be taken seriously. Here, the novel is most trenchant: in railing against the sexism for so long ingrained in academia.
Katherine resents being underestimated because she is a half-Chinese woman, a prejudice that at its most extreme leads others to question whether her work is in fact her own.
鈥淚f you were a man, you鈥檇 have a brilliant future ahead of you,鈥� says one professor.
One scene details a dinner party with the (real-life) physicist Maria Mayer. When she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1963, the San Diego Tribune ran a story referring to her as a 鈥淪an Diego mother鈥� in the headline. For years, Mayer had worked for free because many physics departments refused to pay her.
There is no dearth of short-changed women in history 鈥� in science or in general. The Tenth Muse is keenly aware of how easily the past can be rewritten, achievements and lives subtracted.
The book gets its title from a 鈥渢enth muse鈥� 鈥� an addition to the nine muses of Greek mythology, one who is unwilling to use her talents solely as a means to amplify men鈥檚 voices. The novel is an invocation of sorts, a panegyric to women who blaze their own paths, and tell their own stories.
