White Light (novel)
First edition (UK)
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| Author | Rudy Rucker |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher |
Virgin Books UK) Ace Books (US) |
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Publication date
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Sep 1980 (Virgin) Nov 1980 (Ace) |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 128 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 36954503 |
| 813/.54 21 | |
| LC Class | PS3568.U298 W47 1997 |
White Light is a work of science fiction by Rudy Rucker published in 1980 by Virgin Books in the UK and Ace books in the US. It was written while Rucker was teaching mathematics at the University of Heidelberg from 1978 to 1980, at roughly the same time he was working on the non-fiction book Infinity and the Mind.
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 the set theory concept of aleph numbers, which are more or less the idea that some infinities are bigger than others.
The book is the story of Felix Rayman, a down-and-out mathematics teacher at SUCAS (a state college in New York) with a troubled family life and dead-in-the-water career. He begins experimenting with lucid dreaming—aided by "fuzz weed" (marijuana)—hoping to gain insight into Cantor's continuum hypothesis.
During an out-of-body experience, Felix loses his physical body and nearly falls victim to the Devil, who hunts the Earth for souls like his to take to Hell; Felix calls upon Jesus, who saves him. Jesus asks Felix to do him a favor: to take a restless ghost named Kathy to a place called "Cimön", and bring her to God/Absolute Infinite, which can be found there.
Cimön is permeated with the notion of infinity in its various guises: just getting there involves grappling with infinity, as Cimön is an infinite distance away from Earth. Felix and Kathy get there in their astral bodies by doubling their speed in half the time so that they asymptotically approach infinite speed at four hours. Eventually, at the speed of light, they turn into the eponymous "white light" and merge with Cimön.
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