by SL Huang
I’d already written in a bit about Halliday’s encryption work using roots of unity—entirely randomly, and mostly so I could use my very cool title for a book that is more about “unity” in the friendship sense than in the mathematical one. Then, one day, I was bopping around reading math papers, as one does, and I came across the work of Koch, Bouaynaya, Shterenberg, and Babiceanu.
And I almost died.
Here was something I had made up as technobabble for a completely fictional algorithm and it turned out it was part of a real proof!
I was so excited by this that I tweaked the dialogue between Cas and Halliday so it sounded more like the details of the real mathematics. I am indebted to Koch, Bouaynaya, Shterenberg, and Babiceanu for their research, and I hope they don’t mind that I have attributed their proof (or some similar proof, in the alternate universe of Russell’s Attic) to an entirely fictional character.
If anyone would like to read their proof, it is online at http://www.ipcsit.com/vol31/011-ICIII2012-C0029.pdf.
Fiction by SL Huang
The Russell’s Attic Series
Novels
Zero Sum Game
Half Life
Root of Unity
Plastic Smile – coming 2016
Short Stories
Rio Adopts a Puppy
Ladies’ Day Out
Other Works
Hunting Monsters [Book Smugglers Publishing]
Fighting Demons [Book Smugglers Publishing]
Acknowledgments
Once again, my sister remains my biggest support and Cas Russell’s biggest fan. The amount of time she has poured into cheering on these books is too big for me ever to repay—fate needs to dump a rainbow winged pony on her doorstep even to begin to balance the scales.
I also owe an incredible debt to my beta readers, Bu Zhidao, Elaine Aliment, Kevan O’Meara, Layla Lawlor, and Jesse Sutanto. I have no idea what possesses them to volunteer their time to make my books eons and eons better, but they do. I’m the luckiest writer alive to have them.
Root of Unity’s book cover is my favorite so far in the series, and that’s once again thanks to the brilliance of my jaw-dropping cover designer, Najla Qamber. My editor for the books continues to be the wonderful Anna Genoese, who polishes my paragraphs to a blinding shine each and every time. These excellent ladies deserve all the credit in the world for their talents.
For the third time, David Wilson took valuable time from his very busy life to dialect-check for me and to answer my dumb follow-up linguistic questions. He’s a marvelous person with a staggering intellect, and the world really needs more Davids in it. Needless to say, everything I got right is thanks to him, and any errors are my own.
My dear friends Vimal Bhalodia and Nancy McCrumb helped me fact-check and read through several passages for plausibility in their areas of expertise. I’m constantly stunned by how many incredibly skilled, knowledgeable friends I have—and how generous they are with their experience. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
And once again, I could not be moving forward as an author without the cheerleading, aid, and love from the various writing communities I am a part of. Thanks to my friends on Absolute Write, on Twitter, and elsewhere online—thanks to my fans, I can’t even believe I have fans now, you are awesome! Thank you, so much, all of you, for reading, for recommending and reviewing and retweeting—this series would not be gaining the readers it is without you. And many and myriad thanks in particular to the Barnyard, for dealing with everything from my obsessive perfectionism to my overdramatic freakouts about editing. I don’t know how you guys put up with me, but I’m so grateful to you for all the hugs, the advice…for letting me lean on you, getting me through the inevitable low points, and sharing the highs with me.
Finally, to all my friends and family who are constantly in my corner: you rock. You assume my success before I’ve even had a chance for self-doubt, and it’s absolutely rad. I hope I’m even half as awesome to you as you all are to me.
About the Author
SL Huang majored in mathematics at MIT. The program did not include training to become a superpowered assassin-type. Sadly.
You can find out more about SL Huang than you ever wanted to know by visiting www.slhuang.com or by following @sl_huang on Twitter.