My daily paper just now is full of mathematical difficulties,
submitted by its readers for the amusement of one of
its staff. Every morning he appeals to us for
assistance in solving tricky little problems about
pints of water and herrings and rectangular fields.
The magic number “9” has a great fascination
for him. It is terrifying to think that if you
multiply any row of figures by 9 the sum of the figures
thus obtained is divisible by 9. It is uncanny
to hear that if a clock takes six seconds to strike
six it takes as much as thirteen seconds and a fifth
to strike twelve.
As a relief from searching for news in a press devoid
of news, the study of these problems is welcome enough,
and to the unmathematical mind, no doubt, the solutions
appear to be something miraculous. But to the
mathematical mind a thing more miraculous is the awe
with which the unmathematical regard the simplest
manipulation of figures. Most of my life at school
was spent in such pursuits that I feel bound to claim
the mathematical mind to some extent, with the result
that I can look down wonderingly upon these deeps
of ignorance yawning daily in the papers—much,
I dare say, as the senior wrangler looks down upon
me. Figures may puzzle me occasionally, but at
least they never cause me surprise or alarm.
Naturally, then, I am jealous for the mathematical
mind. If a man who makes a false quantity, or
attributes Lycidas to Keats, is generally admitted
to be uncultured, I resent it very much that no stigma
attaches to the gentleman who cannot do short division.
I remember once at school having to do a piece of
Latin prose about the Black Hole of Calcutta.
It was a moving story as told in our prose book, and
I had spent an interesting hour turning into fairly
correct and wholly uninspired Latin—the
sort of Latin I suppose which a small uneducated Roman
child (who had heard the news) would have written to
a school-boy friend. The size of the Black Hole
was given as “twenty foot square.”
I had no idea how to render this idiomatically, but
I knew that a room 20 ft. square contained 400 square
feet. Also I knew the Latin for one square foot.
But you will not be surprised to hear that my form
master, a man of culture and education, leapt upon
me.
“Quadringenti,” he snapped, “is
400, not 20.”
“Quite so,” I agreed. “The
room had 400 square feet.”
“Read it again. It says 20 square feet.”
“No, no, 20 feet square.”
He glared at me in indignation. “What’s
the difference?” he said.
I sighed and began to explain. I went on explaining.
If there had not been other things to do than teaching
cultured and educated schoolmasters, I might be explaining
still.
