Greg Egan facts for kids

Greg Egan (born August 20, 1961) is an Australian writer and mathematician. He is famous for his science fiction stories. These stories are often called hard science fiction because they use a lot of real science and math. Greg Egan has won many important awards for his writing. These include the Hugo Award and the Locus Award.

About Greg Egan's Life and Work

Greg Egan studied mathematics at the University of Western Australia. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree there.

He started publishing his stories in 1983. His science fiction often explores big ideas. These ideas include complex math and the nature of consciousness. He also writes about genetics, simulated reality, and artificial intelligence. His stories often show how logic and science can explain the world. He likes to explore new physics and how we gain knowledge.

Greg Egan's short stories have appeared in popular science fiction magazines. These include Interzone and Asimov's Science Fiction.

Greg Egan's Work with Mathematics

Greg Egan is not just a writer; he's also a talented mathematician. In 2002, he worked with other mathematicians on papers about complex math symbols. These symbols are used in a field called quantum gravity. This is a part of physics that tries to understand gravity at a very tiny level. These math ideas were also important in his novel Schild's Ladder.

In 2014, Greg Egan suggested a new idea in geometry. It was about how spheres fit together in different dimensions. This idea became known as the Egan conjecture. He even published a proof for part of it on a blog. Later, in 2023, another mathematician proved the rest of his idea.

In 2018, Egan also worked on a math problem about "superpermutations." These are very long sequences of symbols. He found a way to describe how to build them. In 2019, he even set a new record for the shortest superpermutation of seven symbols.

Greg Egan's Personal Life

Greg Egan lives in Perth, Australia. He is a vegetarian. He also does not attend science fiction events or sign books. He prefers to keep his life private. He has said that there are no real photos of him on the internet.

Awards and Recognitions

Greg Egan has received many awards for his amazing stories:

• Permutation City: Won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1995.
• Oceanic: Won the Hugo Award and the Locus Award in 1999.
• Distress: Won the Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis in Germany for Best Foreign Fiction in 2000.

His work has also won the Japanese Seiun Award eight times. This award is for the best translated fiction. In 2000, his novel Teranesia won the Ditmar Award. However, Greg Egan chose not to accept this award.

Greg Egan's Books

Novels

• An Unusual Angle (1983)
• Quarantine (1992)
• Permutation City (1994)
• Distress (1995)
• Diaspora (1997)
• Teranesia (1999)
• Schild's Ladder (2002)
• Incandescence (2008)
• Zendegi (2010)
• Dichronauts (2017)
• Perihelion Summer (2019)
• The Book of All Skies (2021)
• Scale (2023)
• Morphotrophic (2024)

The Orthogonal Trilogy

This is a series of three novels:

• The Clockwork Rocket (2011)
• The Eternal Flame (2012)
• The Arrows of Time (2013)

Short Story 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 Stories

• Artifact (1983)
• The Way She Smiles, The Things She Says (1985)
• Tangled Up (1985)
• Mind Vampires (1986)
• Neighbourhood Watch (1987)
• Scatter My Ashes (1988)
• The Extra (1990)
• The Vat (1990)
• In Numbers (1991)
• The Demon's Passage (1991)
• Fidelity (1991)
• Before (1992)
• Dust (1992)
• Worthless (1992)
• Reification Highway (1992)
• Wang's Carpets (1995)
• Yeyuka (1997)
• Only Connect (2000)
• In the Ruins (2013)
• Didicosm (2023)
• Death and the Gorgon (2024)
• Vouch for Me (2024)

Short Movies Inspired by His Work

A short film was made based on Greg Egan's story "Axiomatic". The movie started production in 2015 and was released online in October 2017.

See also

In Spanish: Greg Egan para niños