>>88902817Alice in wonderland takes several points to make thinly veiled commentaries on modern mathematics.
~ In chapter 1, "Down the Rabbit-Hole", in the midst of shrinking, Alice waxes philosophical concerning what final size she will end up as, perhaps "going out altogether, like a candle"; this pondering reflects the concept of a limit.
~ In chapter 7, "A Mad Tea-Party", the March Hare, the Hatter, and the Dormouse give several examples in which the semantic value of a sentence A is not the same value of the converse of A (for example, "Why, you might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see'!"); in logic and mathematics, this is discussing an inverse relationship.
~ Also in chapter 7, Alice ponders what it means when changing seats around the circular table places them back at the beginning. This echoes a classic circular combinatorics problem, possibly dating from antiquity.
~ Again in chapter 7, Alice is asked whether she wants "more tea", and objects that she can't have more because she hasn't had any. The Hatter corrects her: "You mean you can't take less: it's very easy to take more than nothing." This is a play on the allowability of inference in comparatives without "than".
~ The Cheshire cat fades until it disappears entirely, leaving only its wide grin suspended in the air, leading Alice to marvel and note that she has seen a cat without a grin, but never a grin without a cat. This echoes ancient questions in logic about substances and predicates.
