Editing Greg Egan (section)

==Life and work==
Egan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the [[University of Western Australia]].<ref name=burnham>{{cite book|last1=Burnham|first1=Karen|isbn=978-0-252-07993-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lPAwAwAAQBAJ&q=greg+egan+Bachelor+of+Science+degree+in+Mathematics&pg=PA1|access-date=1 December 2015|title=Greg Egan|date=30 April 2014|publisher=University of Illinois Press }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Booker|first1=M. Keith|title=Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction in Literature|isbn=978-0810849389|page=98|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WRi7BAAAQBAJ&q=greg+egan+Bachelor+of+Science+degree+in+Mathematics&pg=PA98|access-date=1 December 2015|date=1 October 2014|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.student.uwa.edu.au/course/award-verification-service?family=Egan&given=Greg&given_partial=on&search=Search|title=UWA Award Verification Service|access-date=19 March 2018}}</ref>

He published his first work in 1983.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.gregegan.net/BIBLIOGRAPHY/Bibliography.html |title=Bibliography |publisher=Gregegan.net |date=7 August 2014 |access-date=23 August 2014}}</ref> He specialises in [[hard science fiction]] stories with [[mathematics|mathematical]] and [[quantum ontology]] themes, including the nature of [[consciousness]]. Other themes include [[genetics]], [[simulated reality]], [[posthuman]]ism, [[mind uploading]], [[Human sexuality|sexuality]], [[artificial intelligence]], and the superiority of [[Rationalism|rational]] [[Metaphysical naturalism|naturalism]] to [[religion]]. He often deals with complex technical material, like new physics and [[epistemology]]. He is a [[Hugo Award]] winner (with eight other works shortlisted for the Hugos) and has also won the [[John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel]].<ref name=sfadb>{{sfadb|Greg_Egan}}</ref> His early stories feature strong elements of [[horror fiction|supernatural horror]].

Egan's short stories have been published in a variety of genre magazines, including regular appearances in ''[[Interzone (magazine)|Interzone]]'' and ''[[Asimov's Science Fiction]]''.

===Mathematics===
In 2002, Egan co-authored two papers about Riemannian 10j symbols, [[spin network]]s appearing in Riemannian [[quantum gravity]], together with [[John C. Baez|John Baez]] 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 [[Radius|radii]] of two [[sphere]]s and the distance of their respective centres to fit a [[simplex]] between them to also hold in higher [[dimension]]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 [[John C. Baez|John Baez]]. 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]]s.<ref name=":18">{{cite web|access-date=2023-11-22|author=John Baez|date=2014-07-01|language=en|title=Grace–Danielsson Inequality|url=https://blogs.ams.org/visualinsight/2014/06/01/grace-danielsson-inequality/}}<!-- auto-translated by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> A proof of the inequality also being necessary was published by Sergei Drozdov on 16 October 2023 on [[ArXiv]].<ref name=":19">{{cite arXiv|author=Sergei Drozdov|language=en|title=Egan conjecture holds|date=2023 |class=math.MG |eprint=2310.10816 }}<!-- auto-translated by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>

In 2018, Egan described a construction of [[superpermutation]]s, 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.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Egan |first1=Greg |title=Superpermutations |url=https://www.gregegan.net/SCIENCE/Superpermutations/Superpermutations.html |access-date=2 February 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Klarreich |first1=Erica |title=Mystery Math Whiz and Novelist Advance Permutation Problem |url=https://www.quantamagazine.org/sci-fi-writer-greg-egan-and-anonymous-math-whiz-advance-permutation-problem-20181105/ |website=[[Quanta Magazine]] |date=5 November 2018 |access-date=13 May 2019}}</ref>