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Abstract: "I mention his talk about angles because it suggests something that Wilcox had told me of his awful dreams. He had said that the geometry of the dream-place he saw was abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours." --H.P. Lovecraft (The Call of Cthulhu)
Abstract: Non-Euclidean geometry, the fourth dimension and even higher dimensions are several of the mathematical ideas that are found lurking in the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, a Providence writer of the 1920s and 30s. In this talk, we will give a popular introduction to these mathematical subjects and see how they are used to create a sense of wonder and horror in three of his tales; "Through the Gates of The Silver Key," "The Dreams in the Witch-House," and "The Call of Cthulhu".
NOTE: This is a talk that I was invited to give at the NecronomiCon Sci-Fi Convention in Providence, Rhode Island, during August 20-22, 1999.
This talk will be accessible to undergraduates.
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