Greg Egan (born 20 August 1961) is an Australian

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

writer and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

, best known for his works of

hard science fiction Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell's ''Islands of Space'' in the Novemb ...

. Egan has won multiple awards including the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the

Hugo Award The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) and chosen by its members. The award is administered by th ...

, and the

Locus Award The Locus Awards are an annual set of literary awards voted on by readers of the science fiction and fantasy magazine '' Locus'', a monthly magazine based in Oakland, California. The awards are presented at an annual banquet. Originally a poll ...

Life and work

Egan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the

University of Western Australia University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Crawley, Western Australia, Crawley, a suburb in the City of Perth local government area. UW ...

. He published his first work in 1983. He specialises in

stories with

mathematical Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and quantum ontology themes, including the nature of

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...

. Other themes include

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...

, simulated reality, posthumanism, mind uploading,

sexuality Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

, and the superiority of

rational Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reason. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do, or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ...

naturalism to

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

. He often deals with complex technical material, like new physics and

epistemology Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...

. He is a

winner (with eight other works shortlisted for the Hugos) and has also won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. His early stories feature strong elements of supernatural horror. Egan's short stories have been published in a variety of genre magazines, including regular appearances in '' Interzone'' and '' Asimov's Science Fiction''.

Mathematics

In 2002, Egan co-authored two papers about Riemannian 10j symbols, spin networks appearing in Riemannian

quantum gravity Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics. It deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the v ...

, together with

John Baez John Carlos Baez ( ; born June 12, 1961) is an American mathematical physicist and a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) in Riverside, California. He has worked on spin foams in loop quantum gravity, ap ...

and Dan Christensen. Spin networks also play a central role in his novel '' Schild's Ladder'' released the same year. In 2014, Egan conjectured a generalization of the Grace–Danielsson inequality about the relation of the radii of two

sphere A sphere (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ) is a surface (mathematics), surface analogous to the circle, a curve. In solid geometry, a sphere is the Locus (mathematics), set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three ...

s and the distance of their respective centres to fit a simplex between them to also hold in higher

dimension In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus, a line has a dimension of one (1D) because only one coo ...

s, which later became known as the Egan conjecture. A proof of the inequality being sufficient was published by him in 2014 under a blog post of

. They were lost due to a rearrangement of the website, but the central parts were copied into the original blog post. Further comments by Greg Egan on 16 April 2018 concern the search for a generalized conjecture involving

ellipsoid An ellipsoid is a surface that can be obtained from a sphere by deforming it by means of directional Scaling (geometry), scalings, or more generally, of an affine transformation. An ellipsoid is a quadric surface; that is, a Surface (mathemat ...

s. A proof of the inequality also being necessary was published by Sergei Drozdov on 16 October 2023 on

ArXiv arXiv (pronounced as "archive"—the X represents the Chi (letter), Greek letter chi ⟨χ⟩) is an open-access repository of electronic preprints and postprints (known as e-prints) approved for posting after moderation, but not Scholarly pee ...

. In 2018, Egan described a construction of superpermutations, thus giving an upper bound to their minimum length. On 27 February 2019, using ideas developed by Robin Houston and others, Egan produced a superpermutation of seven symbols of length 5906, breaking previous records.

Personal life

As of 2015, Egan lives in Perth. He is a

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the Eating, consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects as food, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slau ...

and an atheist. Egan does not attend science fiction conventions, does not sign books, and has stated that he appears in no photographs on the web, though both SF fan sites and

Google Search Google Search (also known simply as Google or Google.com) is a search engine operated by Google. It allows users to search for information on the World Wide Web, Web by entering keywords or phrases. Google Search uses algorithms to analyze an ...

have at times mistakenly identified him as the subject of photos of other people with the same name.

Awards

* '' Permutation City'': John W. Campbell Memorial Award (1995) * '' Oceanic'':

, Asimov's Readers' Award (1999) * '' Distress'': Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis as Best Foreign Fiction (2000) Egan's work has won the Japanese

Seiun Award The is a Japanese speculative fiction award given each year for the best science fiction works and achievements during the previous calendar year. Organized and overseen by , the awards are given at the annual Nihon SF Taikai, Japan Science Fic ...

for best translated fiction eight times. '' Teranesia'' was named the winner of the 2000 Ditmar Award for best novel, but Egan declined the award.

Works

Novels

* '' An Unusual Angle'' (1983), * ''

Quarantine A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals, and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have bee ...

'' (1992), * '' Permutation City'' (1994), * '' Distress'' (1995), * ''

Diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently resi ...

'' (1997), * '' Teranesia'' (1999), * '' Schild's Ladder'' (2002), * ''

Incandescence Thermal radiation is electromagnetic radiation emitted by the thermal motion of particles in matter. All matter with a temperature greater than absolute zero emits thermal radiation. The emission of energy arises from a combination of electron ...

'' (2008), * '' Zendegi'' (2010), * '' Dichronauts'' (2017), * '' Perihelion Summer'' (2019), * '' The Book of All Skies'' (2021), * '' Scale'' (2023), * ''Morphotrophic'' (2024),

Orthogonal trilogy

* '' The Clockwork Rocket'' (2011), * '' The Eternal Flame'' (2012), * '' The Arrows of Time'' (2013),

Collections

Axiomatic (1995), Our Lady of Chernobyl (1995), Luminous (1998), Dark Integers and Other Stories (2008), Crystal Nights and Other Stories (2009), Oceanic (2009), The Best of Greg Egan (2019), Instantiation (2020), Sleep and the Soul (2023), Phoresis and Other Journeys (2023),

Other short fiction

Excerpted

* ''

'': ** "Orphanogenesis" in '' Interzone'' issue 123, September 1997

Academic papers

* ''An Efficient Algorithm for the Riemannian 10j Symbols'' by Dan Christensen and Greg Egan * ''Asymptotics of 10j Symbols'' by

, Dan Christensen and Greg Egan * ''Conic-Helical Orbits of Planets around Binary Stars do not Exist'' by Greg Egan

Short movies

The production of a short film inspired by the story " Axiomatic" commenced in 2015, and the film was released online in October 2017.

Notes

References

External links

* *
Greg Egan
at

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

Authorities – with 11 catalogue records
Stories currently online
at ''Free Speculative Fiction Online'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Egan, Greg 1961 births Australian science fiction writers Hugo Award–winning writers Australian atheists Australian computer programmers Living people University of Western Australia alumni 20th-century Australian novelists 21st-century Australian novelists Writers from Perth, Western Australia Australian male novelists Amateur mathematicians