In Popular Culture
- Lobachevsky is the subject of songwriter/mathematician Tom Lehrer's humorous song "Lobachevsky" from his Songs by Tom Lehrer album. In the song, Lehrer portrays a Russian mathematician who sings about how Lobachevsky influenced him: "And who made me a big success / and brought me wealth and fame? / Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name." Lobachevsky's secret to mathematical success is given as "Plagiarize!", as long as one is always careful to "call it, please, research". According to Lehrer, the song is "not intended as a slur on character" and the name was chosen "solely for prosodic reasons".
- In Poul Anderson's 1969 fantasy novella "Operation Changeling" – which was later expanded into the fix-up novel Operation Chaos (1971) – a group of sorcerers navigate a non-Euclidean universe with the assistance of the ghosts of Lobachevsky and Bolyai. The story also contains the line, "Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name," possibly a nod to the Tom Lehrer song.
- Roger Zelazny's science fiction novel Doorways in the Sand contains a poem dedicated to Lobachevsky.
- 1858 Lobachevsk, an asteroid discovered in 1972, was named in his honour.
Read more about this topic: Nikolai Lobachevsky
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or culture:
“But popular rage,
Hysterica passio dragged this quarry down.
None shared our guilt; nor did we play a part
Upon a painted stage when we devoured his heart.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“As the end of the century approaches, all our culture is like the culture of flies at the beginning of winter. Having lost their agility, dreamy and demented, they turn slowly about the window in the first icy mists of morning. They give themselves a last wash and brush-up, their ocellated eyes roll, and they fall down the curtains.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)