The Tachypomp

"The Tachypomp" is a short story by Edward Page Mitchell originally published January 1874 anonymously in The Sun, a New York City daily newspaper. It was Mitchell's first science-fiction story. Mitchell was known for his editorial work on The Sun, but because his science-fiction stories were published anonymously, his well-regarded work was mostly forgotten until its rediscovery in the early 1970s.

"The Tachypomp" is an early use of mathematics as the principal premise of a science-fiction story, and it was one of the first to use the word "android", here used to describe a purely mechanical creature.