In John Scott’s drawing, Invoking the Googol Plex, a diminutive stick figure half taunts, half dares himself to conceive of the metaphysical out of the mathematical by multiplying a googol by itself. (When Kurt Gödel asked a young child what he would call a number just slightly below the infinite, the child replied, “A googol.”) All of Scott’s miraculous drawings have a similar “what if . . .” quality about them that reminds us of that childhood moment when some geography teacher said the universe has no end.

They’re really awe-inspired drawings, full, of a boyish apprehension of fact. The