Drode's Equations

"Drode's Equations" is a science-fiction short story written by fantasy/SF/fiction writer Richard Grant. One of several short stories that he wrote early on, before his novels, it was written in 1981 and published in an anthology called The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story is in a subgenre of science fiction dealing largely with math (time in particular).

Synopsis

The short story is told from the first person point of view, in a style reminiscent of more archaic fiction. It appears to take place in a fictional setting, and uses fictional names, although treating them as if real. The main character (male, presumably) finds in his home an old notebook, which contains a set of equations so rare that they have become little more than legend. They are (he thinks) the work of Drode: hence Drode's equations. He sets off on a train, pondering the equations during his trip.

The equations are a set of three, and are supposed to be equivalent. Two of them are complex (the first especially, using a symbol for time frequently), the third very concise. Readers are led to ponder why the symbol for time appears often in the first, once in the second, and not at all in the third. Also, a symbol for motion or speed appeared only in the first and third equations. They seem to relate the same truth about nature, in terms of time as well as without time.

The equations themselves are not given, and can only be pieced together in part from the text of the story.

gollark: (this is now up on the forums).
gollark: ```Unfortunately, it is unavailable, possibly forever, because (according to an email):Thank you for your request to access the Dragon Cave API from host dc.osmarks.tk. At this time, your request could not be granted, for the following reason: You have, through your own admission on the forums, done the exact thing that got EATW banned from the API.This may be a non-permanent issue; feel free to re-submit your request after correcting any issue(s) listed above.Thanks, T.J. Land presumably due to this my server and computer (yes, I should use a VPS, whatever) can no longer access DC. Whether this is sickness checking, scraping, or using EATW's approximation for optimal view count I know not, but oh well. Due to going against the unwritten rules of DC (yes, this is why I was complaining about ridiculous T&C issues) this hatchery is now nonfunctional. Service may be restored if I actually get some notification about what exactly the problem is and undoing it will not make the whole thing pointless. The text at the bottom is quite funny, though.```
gollark: I could add a T&C stating that it is the hatchery's automatic systems' prerogative to take stuff which is sick out of rotation, but none would care.
gollark: They effectively give helping permission by submitting it to a hatchery, but that's irrelevant.
gollark: Ah, well, it *could* be interpreted that way, I guess.
  • Math Fiction's entry on Drode's Equations.
  • Fantastic Fiction's entry on Richard Grant, including images of his book's covers.
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