White Light is a work of science fiction by Rudy Rucker published in 1980 by Ace Books. Written while Rucker was teaching mathematics at the University of Heidelberg from 1978-1980, at roughly the same time he was working on the nonfiction book Infinity and the Mind, the novel deals mainly with the concept of infinity and relies heavily on principles of Set theory.

Synopsis

---

The book is the story of a mathematics teacher at SUCAS (a state college in New York) named Felix Rayman, who starts experimenting with lucid dreaming. On one of these out of body experiences Felix loses his physical body and is forced to travel into another dimension which is heavily influenced by the concept of infinity. In this new world Felix encounters famous scientists and mathematicians such as Albert Einstein, and Georg Cantor.

On one level, the book is an exploration of the mathematics of infinity through fiction, in much the same way the novel Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions explored the concept of multiple dimensions. More specifically, White Light uses an imaginary universe to elucidate aleph numbers, which are more or less the idea that some infinities are bigger than others. The novel includes a hotel that is based on Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel.

White Light and Transrealism

---

The main character is a Transrealist interpretation of Rucker's life in the 1970s. (Rucker taught mathematics at the State University College at Geneseo, New York from 1972-1978.) ^* As such, though the character is fictional, he bears some exaggerated resemblance to Rucker's interpretation of himself at the time. Rucker tells John Shirley in the introduction to recent editions that "I have never really left my body and gone to infinity's Heaven."

External links

---

• Book's Official Website
• John Shirley's Introduction with some additional paragraphs.

1980 novels | Science fiction novels | Mathematics fiction books