A Novel by Robert Carr

The endless mysteries of mathematics – and especially the unresolved paradoxes of mathematical thought – is central to this work of fiction. Continuums is partly about the resolution of Cantor’s Conjecture or the Continuum Hypothesis, a mathematical problem which haunted thinkers at the beginning of the last century.

Continuums is also, of course, about people, trapped in their own worlds, unable to find a way out, trying to resolve paradoxes, seeking resolution.

Alexandra is a brilliant mathematician whose career and family unravel following the flight of her brother from Communist Romania. She delays, procrastinates, but she too departs for North America and leaves behind her husband and her daughter.

Asuero Aroso is Alexandra’s first mentor and colleague. He is a Sephardic Jew, born in Istanbul, a gifted student of the eminent mathematician David Hilbert, an extraordinary but obscure mathematician, also stuck in Romania. His story is the story of a young genius, an incompatible and unhappy marriage, an epochal mathematics discovery left unheralded, a man stuck in a paradoxical world and in an impossible, incomprehensible and cruel political system.

The drama between these two people unfolds as their relationship evolves from a professional one to friendship and beyond.

Robert Carr has found a most intriguing vehicle to explore the interplay between the world of mathematics and the world of two human beings situated in mid-century Romania. It is a bold, imaginative, engaging novel.

Robert Carr was born in Bucharest and at the age of 24, he fled the Communist regime. He moved from France to Israel and then settled in Canada. He was trained as an engineer and worked in the aerospace industry. He now writes full time. This is his first novel.

Author: Robert Carr
Category: Fiction
ISBN: 0889628920
Pages: 250