Question about Mathematics from Zamiatin.

[Julie Curtis]

Dear SEELANGERS, 

thank you for this fascinating discussion! 

As some of you will know, the question of Zamiatin's awareness of the mathematical inaccuracies in the novel was first raised in detail in the article by Leighton Brett Cooke published in Gary Kern's 1988 volume of essays ('Ancient and modern mathematics in Zamyatin's We', pp. 149-67). 
Other relevant discussion can be found in:
- Leatherbarrow, W.J., 'Einstein and the art of Yevgeny Zamyatin', Modern Language Review, LXXXII, 1, (1987), pp. 142-51.
- Лахузен, Т., Максимова, Е., Андрюс, Е., (Lahusen, Maksimova, Andrews), О синтетизме, математике и прочем… Роман 'Мы' Е.И. Замятина, (St Petersburg, 1994).

In our recent scholarly edition of the novel in Russian, based on the unique typescript held at SUNY Albany, we did not unfortunately investigate this question in detail. The comment on Entry 8 simply reads as follows:
Иррациональный корень - В математике "иррациональный" - несоизмеримый; иррациональные числа - числа, несоизмеримые с единицей, а потому не могущие быть точно выраженными ни целыми, ни дробными рациональными числами, например, квадратный корень из числа.
(Евгений Замятин, Мы. Текст и материалы к творческой истории романа, под ред. М. Ю. Любимова и Дж. Куртис (Санкт-Петербург: Мир, 2011, p. 403)

I find Rebecca's comments particularly illuminating and convincing. D-503 is undoubtedly 'stupid' as a narrator, and it is not surprising that his mathematics should be at the very least narrow in outlook (see Brett Cooke), or even occasionally inaccurate - not least because he is so overwhelmed by his new experiences that he has become distracted? A brilliant example of how сказ narration can operate.
 
There cannot be any doubt about Zamiatin's own credentials as a mathematician. Although there is one autobiography in which he suggests that he found maths difficult to get on with at school, his leaving report comments on his excellence in the subject, and he won a place at the new, prestigious Polytechnic, for which entry was very competitive and mathematical skills had to be very strong. When he wrote the novel (largely in 1919-20) he had only recently returned from his 18 months in England (1916-17), where his engineering reports and correspondence for the shipyards on the Tyne, who were engaged in strategically crucial wartime production, all had to be drafted in English. Incidentally, he had studied Greek and Latin as well as French and German at school (English appears to have come later, at the Polytechnic), so he may well have been sensitive to a wide range of the linguistic and etymological nuances of mathematical terminology. At the time of writing the novel he was still in regular employment as a Lecturer in naval design at the Polytechnic.
(J.A.E. Curtis, The Englishman from Lebedian' - A Life of Evgeny Zamiatin (1884-1937), (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2013)

I look forward to reading further comments on this issue!
Best wishes, 
Julie

Dr J.A.E. Curtis, 
University Lecturer in Russian and Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford

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