I Read Stories: Proof By Induction by José Pablo Iriarte

Proof By Induction by José Pablo Iriarte in Uncanny

Paulie’s father died but the hospital made a snapshot of him, a simulation, in his last moments, known as a Coda. It’s for last goodbyes and for passing on information about wills and insurance and other practical things.

Paulie and his father are both mathematicians and they worked on the Perelman Hypothesis. And Paulie keeps the Coda. Everytime he enters it’s the same and his father remembers nothing of previous visits, is still the same calm man who knows he’s died and has a few bits of business to deal with, and is, as it turns out, as interested in the mathematical problem as anything else.

Paulie is obsessed with solving the Perelman Hypothesis, and in part that’s because it’s his last connection to his father. And his father, in the Coda, will never change. And Paulie will have to.

Read This: For a story about solving mathematical theorems and about parent child relationships
Don’t Read This: The combination of death, maths and emotionally distant parents is not for you