‘Gomez’ by C.M. Kornbluth

This is hardly a science fiction story at all. Instead ‘Gomez’ tells the story of a mathematical savant, directly inspired by the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan (complete with comedy foreign accent). The hard SF element is that he invents a Unified Field Theory but it isn’t really SF since he immediately destroys it and it has no implications for the story.

Quality: **
Hardness: *