So I like periodically looking through legends mode on my active fortress, not considering it cheating, but actually kind of the point of the game for me, to read the story. I came across a very strange thing, that books were being destroyed in my fort I knew nothing about. I was worried that someone had gone missing I hadn't noticed, but no one I didn't already know about being dead was. I followed the evidence back to a seemingly mundane dwarf named Ustuth Endokustir, who was a migrant that came in as a cook. Nothing seemed interesting about her at a glance, but it turns out, she independently discovered mathematical principles, she wrote the books that were destroyed, and they were in her possession when they were destroyed. Oh, and she has killed a few goblins and trolls in the war to boot.
I don't have a trash compactor set up, or any magma exposed, and no fires have broken out, and no cave ins have happened since she moved in, so I'm not sure how it could have been accidentally destroyed. Are dwarves able to intentionally destroy books? Did she burn her own works?
So, yes, she independently discovered multiple mathematical principles, and is an expert mathematician and grand master logician! Shortly after making these discoveries in her former home, she got a divorce, and then moved to an elven retreat... where she wrote the books. The books were titled "Life With Completing the Square" and "The Axioms". Given that she invented the algebras "balancing and completion", "solving linear systems", and "quadratic by completing the square", I have a feeling these books were on these very mathematical subjects. Why she would have destroyed these books (assuming that's what happened) is beyond me. From a narrative perspective, it seems to me like she is pretty depressed over her divorce, and those books reminded her of her former husband. Running away to the forest retreat, and now to my fortress, wasn't enough to make her forget.
Of course, now that I am aware she has these talents, I intend to put her to work in the library as soon as possible. I had her rendering tallow! Maybe she'll write them again, but I don't know how the game works, so maybe not. Maybe she'll discover and write new things! Very interesting, and I wonder if anyone has any idea why these books were destroyed from a game logic perspective.