Carl E Linderholm Mathematics Made Difficult (1972)
Carl E Linderholm Mathematics Made Difficult (1972)
Carl E Linderholm Mathematics Made Difficult (1972)
MADE
DIFFICULT
CARL E. LIN DERHOLM
ISBN 72340415 1
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
1. The structure of the book
2. How to read this book
1 ARITHMETIC
1. So you think you can count?
2. Add astra per aspirin
3. Subtraction
4. The negative-positive diathesis
5. Multiplication
6. Division
7. Casting out nines
10
11
13
23
36
43
49
54
66
108
3 ALGEBRA
1. The wonderful quadratic formula
2. The incommensurable of the incommensurable
3. The inconstructible of the inconstructible
4. Pain de maison
5. The Rule of Three
6. Polynomials
7. What are brackets?
117
126
129
137
143
145
155
71
78
80
89
99
CONTENTS
163
171
186
EXERCISES
199
BIBLIOGRAPHY
205
To
CLEMENT V. DURELL, M.A.
WITHOUT WHOM THIS BOOK
WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN NECESSARY
INTRODUCTION
One of the great Zen masters had an eager disciple who never lost an
opportunity to catch whatever pearls of wisdom might drop from
the master's lips, and who followed him about constantly. One day,
deferentially opening an iron gate for the old man, the disciple asked,
'How may I attain. enlightenment l' The ancient sage, though
withered and feeble, could be quick, and he deftly caused the heavy
gate to shut on the pupil's leg, breaking it.
When the reader has understood this little story, then he will
understand the purpose of this book. It would seem to the unenllghtened as though the master, far from teaching his disciple, had left
him more perplexed than ever by his cruel trick. To the enlightened,
the anecdote expresses a deep truth. It is impossible to spell out for
the reader what this truth is; he can only be referred to the anecdote.
Simplicity is relative. To the great majority of mankindmathematical ignoramuses-it is a simple fact, for instance, that
17 X 17 = 289, and a complicated one that in a principal ideal ring
a finite subset of a set E suffices to generate the ideal generated by E.
For the reader and for others among a select few, the reverse is the
case. One needs to be reminded of this fact especially as it applies to
mathematics. Thus, the title of this book might equally well have
been Mathematics Made Simple; whereas most books with that title
9
INTRODUCTION
(AnB)
IT
(Anc)
I "\\
AnB--'A4AnC
. B~
t;
An (BnC) C
"Blc/
11
12
1
A-RITH M ETI C
1. So you think you can count?
QUESTION
0+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++.
Objection 4. Furthermore, Peano's axioms imply a supposed wellordering, whereby there is a least number with a given property,
provided any number possesses the property. But the least number
14
ARITHMETIC
+ 1.
{O, 1, ... , n - I}
is n. According to another definition, a set is infinite if the set of
natural numbers can be injected into it. The identity function is such
an injection for the set of natural numbers itself. Another possible
15
for No.
PEANO'S AXIOMS
(0) No is a set;
(1) 0 ENo,'
(2) + : No -+ No is afunction;
(3) !f0 E E c No and if(E) + c E then E = No.
(Note that
is written on the right of its argument; (3) is the induction axiom.)
(4) + is injective (a
(5) 0 (No)+'
+ = b + => a = b);
{O} <=+ No -+ No
is a counting system. The child's system
*0~1 ~20
gum+-! by
or like
16
ARITHMETIC
(2)
"~
I:.
___J_
JI---+give
\,/'
up
provide numbers that are never used in counting.
I ANSWER THAT some people really count, namely mathematicians,
some savages, and some two-year-olds. Anyone counts who possesses
a counting system. Mathematicians have a universal counting system
No called the natural numbers. But he who counts both universally
and naturally counts really. Also, some two-year-olds count as
follows:
one, two, three, three, three, ...
But this implies the existence of a counting system
*one ~ two ~ three 0,
since if s : X ~ X is defined by
X = {one, t~o, three}
s: one~two
two ~
.;r three
three
then s is a function and hence
{one} ~ X~X
is a counting system (this is discussed further below). Moreover,
many so-called 'primitive' languages have such a system.
QUESTION
18
ARITHMETIC
If {x}
s .
ft
.v
{y} ~ Y--* Y
QUESTION
3. Whether 2 + 2
= 4?
ARITHMETIC
Reply to Objection 3. This author is not writing about mathematics; moreover, he explicitly disclaims mathematical knowledge:
'four, which I know not'.
Objection 4. What is 21 Define your terms!
Reply to Objection 4. The number 2 will be defined by the above
equation I + I = 2, as soon as I get around to defining I and +.
Objection 5. This would seem to imply that two games of chess
equal a game of bridge. But chess is mathematical in nature, whereas
bridges are an engineering problem and merely an application of
mathematics.
Reply to Objection 5. We do not yet assert that two players plus
two other players make four players; this is adding things, which
goes beyond the scope of this section.
Objection 6. Furthermore, when people put two and two together,
admittedly they usually get four, but sometimes they get other
numbers. Hence we cannot be absolutely sure that 2 + 2 = 4. But
mathematics deals in absolute certainty, so '2 + 2 = 4' is not
mathematically valid.
Reply to Objection 6. Our assertion bears absolutely no relation to
the data of practical experience. Moreover, most people cannot
count, let alone add.
Objection 7. That 2 + 2 = 4 is a consequence of the so-called
associative law, obeyed by all monoids including that of the natural
numbers. But natural numbers have no organs of communication.
Hence they cannot form associations, groups, or societies. Hence it
would seem that 2 + 2 ~ 4.
Reply to Objection 7. It is the mathematicians who group the
numbers, not the numbers themselves. But monoids have the
property that it makes no difference whether we group their elements one way or another, which property we call the associative
law.
Objection 8. It would be unnatural to add numbers, since we have
already seen that mathematicians make no claim to know what those
are in themselves. If you do not know what 2 is, how can you know
how to add it to anything 1
Reply to Objection 8. It is true that it is unnatural to add numbers.
The natural thing to do is to add, or compose, functions, and the
objector will be relieved to learn that this is what we shall do. Since
21
3
2
1
o
+
3
2
1
0
3
3
2
1
3
3
3
2
3
3
3
3
0 123
+,
(a
+ b) + c = a + (b + c)
and
Hence
2 = 1 + 1,
3 = 2 + 1,
4=3+1.
2 + 2 = 2 + (1 + 1) by definition
= (2 + 1) + 1 by the associative law
= 3 + 1 by definition
= 4 by definition.
ARITHMETIC
This section is about addition. The fact that the reader has been told
this does not necessarily mean that he knows what the section is about,
at all. He still has to know what addition is, and that he may not yet
know. It is the author's fond hope that he may not even know it after
he has read the whole section. Though addition, in general, is a
special case of multiplication, here it is thought enough to consider
only the addition of numbers, a very special case.
In the dim ages of the half-forgotten past, in Babylon and ancient
Egypt, most people seem to have proceeded to learn to do what they
thought was adding after having mastered counting; and they then
'added' with the same numbers they 'counted' with. The childhood of
the man is said to mirror the childhood of the race, and among
children this traditional course is indeed still followed by many.
Should this be so, or ought we rather to add before we can count?
We no longer dwell in caves, and the fact that counting has already
been mentioned in this book before adding need hardly prejudice the
reader to think that it comes first.
'Generations have trod, have trod,have trod;' but pity the poor
ordinary sod, the present-day beneficiary of all their traditional
treading! You have only to pronounce in his hearing the word
'addition' to conjure up before his fevered imagination a frantic
nightmare. He sees the numerals in a black whose blackness has no
bottom to its depth:
$179.63
2696
1066-1-5
1-0-1
205-12-71
TOTAL:
13250-2-9!
He knows for sure the sum is wrong. But how? Where? The digits
100m larger and nearer; he falls into the blackness; at last, mercifully,
he faints. Alas! Yet, in his benighted way, he too has entered
23
0333 ...
-put,these aside. There is a great lot of difficulty to be got out of
much, much simpler things-for the simpler the things a man gets
difficulty out of, the better his mathmanship. Do you suppose there
is much difficulty in such a thing as
12
+25
=37 ?
Indeed there is! To be honest, the previous discussion of 2 + 2
was mere fools' play. Let us be fair, and start with
1
+1
=4
=2.
A bit too hasty, perhaps. The trouble starts with that '1'. Remember
that the experts are less than sanguine about giving any real, obvious
meaning to such a thing as 1. What is the real meaning of 1 ? Who can
say? It is impossible to agree on any meaning; and if the deepest
thinkers could agree on some idea of 1, that would be of no real help
at all. But let it pass. What can be meant by '+'?
Since it appears to be difficult beyond all difficulty for the greatest
philosophers to say what anything is 'in itself', mathematicians
customarily come to some sort of agreement about what they will
ARITHMETIC
get together and 'believe't about things. Since nobody has the
slightest idea-least of all the poor mathematicians themselveswhat the things are about which the mathematicians entertain their
so-called 'beliefs', who can blame them for their harmless fancy?
Like the world of a science-fiction story, a system of beliefs need not
be highly credible-it may be as wild as you like, so long as it is not
self-contradictory-and it should lead to some interesting difficulties,
some of which should, in the end, be resolved.
a + 0 = a = 0 + a.
(Ml)
This is a shorthand way of saying that if you add 0 to any number
whatever, you get the same number. Since nobody knows what a
number is, it might begin to appear as if this rule had a very limited
applicability. Supposing Mao Tse-Tung to be a number, for example,
one could write the sum
Mao Tse-Tung + 0 = Mao Tse-Tung.
On the other hand, if he is not a number, it does not say if you can, or
not. May we put the beloved chairman into our sums, or not? Is it a
friendly or an unfriendly act? Will he back us up if we do it? Will he
tum the cold shoulder and apologise to our head of state for our bad
behaviour ?Is he really a number, or is it only propaganda ?Naturally,
the reader shall not find out from me. Partly, what is involved here
is the 'belief':
Everything, even Chairman Mao, either is or is not a number.
(Sl)
There are a few other little pieces of etiquette, such as never writing
+ between any two things except two numbers, and that 0 is a
number. (The reader had better get used to the idea of not knowing
whether Mao is a number. But if he is not one, the reader must not
write him into any sums.t)
Part of what has just been said is contained in writing:
+: No
No -:,.No;
this also tells you that adding two numbers produces a number; not,
t The expression' "believe" " as distinct from 'believe', is used in this book for
something like 'pretend to pretend to believe'. See Hypocritic Oath, Appendix.
t The author is unaware if he has ever written Chairman Mao into a sum. On
the other hand, if he is not a number then I haven't.
See p. 24.
25
QUESTION
4. Whether 1 is a number?
26
ARITHMETIC
several old men and several valerian drops, and never one. Since a
number never means one, one is not a number.
Reply to Objection 3. The fact that we do not say 'a number' when
we mean '1' is a singularity of usage.
8 + 1 = 9.
27
+ (b + c) = (a + b) + c
(M2)
28
ARITHMETIC
1+1=2
this meant only that 1 + 1 was to be called 2. It may perhaps be, for
all we know, that 1 + 1 is really 0, so that we have agreed to call 0
by the name '2'. In other words, it may be that 2 = O. Who can tell?
It was agreed that all prejudices and preconceptions about 2 were to
be given up. So if we say 0 = 2 we are hardly saying that none are
company or that nothing is certain in life. The addition table below
satisfies the axioms so far; there are not many numbers, which
greatly simplifies all the effort expended in teaching arithmetic.
0+1=1
1+1=0
0+0=0
1+0=1
1 + 1 = O.
All we know so far is that it cannot be settled at all if all that is
known about the system of numbers is that it is a monoid. Obviously,
the thing to do is to assume a universal property:
Thet monoid No is universally repelling.
(It is self-evident that this has reference to the subcategory of the
category of all categories; but to obviate any doubt, the morphisms
are the functors.)
Note: The reader may well object to the use of monoids and not
groups. He should be reminded that this book is not a first text in
t pointed, with 1.
29
{O, IX}
(0 =1= IX)
such that
1~1X
satisfies
p(1
+ 1) =
p(l)
+ p(l) =
IX:+ IX = IX;
if now
1+1=0
then
o=
p(O)
= p(l
+ 1) =
IX,
ARITHMETIC
31
nl-+n+l
{O} ~No~No.
But having a counting system is not enough. What you must have in
order to assure success in all your counting endeavours is a real, true,
initial counting system. So let
{x}
~ X~X
sending
1-+ /;
32
ARITHMETIC
which is written
n 1-+ fn.
Now it is possible to define a mapping
No-+X
by writing
rex)
33
7 + 5 = 12;
and also that
5 + 7 = 12;
they may, indeed, have observed that the equation
a+b=b+a
holds true in a large number of cases in ordinary arithmetic. Now,
of course, ordinary arithmetic is a complicated subject-much more
complicated than the simplified version considered here. It involves
34
ARITHMETIC
a+b=b+a
must be verified in order to rule out even one single exception?
Obviously, no number of cases will suffice. The commutative law, as
any schoolchild knows today, does not hold for every conceivable
monoid. An example is a monoid in which 'addition't acts by
absorbing the right-hand (or dexter) element into the left-hand (or
sinister) one:
x+y=x
-an exception must be made if one of the elements is the neutral
element, since in any monoid this element must always be absorbed.
To be specific:
IX
fJ
fJ
fJ
fJ
y
y
y
y
IX
fJ
IX
fJ
fJ
IX
IX
IX
IX
0
0
N=No
and
a+b=b+a
for every pair of natural numbers a and b.
The addition of columns like
1
174
9
34
9
?
leads to the general associative laws, which are too deep to consider
as yet.
3. Subtraction
Marco (the waiter) Cameriere meets Pigritio (Piggy) Risorgiamento
in the automat. 'Say, Marco. You know that guy Watermaker?'
'Watermaker the differential geometer?'
'Yeah. Know something? He uses infinitesimals. Infinitesimals
aren't rigorous.'
'Aw, c'mon, Piggy. Everybody uses infinitesimals these days.
They can be made rigorous. They are rigorous.'
'They're not rigorous, Marco. Watermaker needs a lesson in
rigour.' Idly chopping his cigar in bits with poultry shears, Pigritio
emphasises the point. 'What he needs is rigour.'
The following day, a shocking announcement is made at the conference on singularities at New Rochelle. 'Dr Watermaker is in
36
ARITHMETIC
327
-143
???
has an answer, and
143
-327
???
has none. The only case when both 'a - b' and 'b - a' are considered to be subtractions that can be carried out with natural
numbers, and giving natural numbers as answers as well, is when a
and b are both exactly the same number:
a=b.
The standard line of argument is this: If you could take a from band
still have some left over, that would mean that b was bigger than a.
Similarly, if b can be taken from a then b is bigger. But it is impossible
for each to be bigger than the other. So the subtraction cannot be
carried out in both directions. If that were all there was to it, the
question would be simple indeed; but, unfortunately, there is a flaw
in the reasoning. To say that one number is bigger than another is
no more or less than to say that the second can be subtracted from
the first, leaving something over. Hence, to say that each of two
numbers cannot be bigger than the other is to repeat the statement
that is to be proved. It is not correct in logic to prove something by
37
saying it over again; that only works in politics, and even there it is
usually considered desirable to repeat the proposition hundreds of
times before considering it as definitely established.
A slightly more mathematical idea is this: Suppose it were possible
to subtract a from b, and also possible to subtract b from a. To make
the idea realistic, write
a-b=p
and
b - a =q.
These equations give
and hence
a = b + p = (a + q) + p = a + (q + p).
If a is cancelled from the above equation, the result is
O=q+p.
But then it is known that both q and pare 0, so a = b. That is just
what everyone has always thought-the subtraction works in
both directions only if the two numbers are the same number.
The last-mentioned argument appears so finical and precise that
it is in danger of being considered correct. It has one mistake, however.
QUESTION
ARITHMETIC
waters, and of any living thing that is in the waters, they shall be an
abomination nnto you .. .' [15] Since cancelli are an abomination,
one may not cancel.
Reply to Objection 1. The Latin word for 'scales' in the passage
quoted is squamas. Anything that has squamas is perfectly all right,
as the immediately preceding verse states explicitly. But ecrevisses or
crawfish are extremely squeamish, as any little girl will tell you. The
other meaning of cancelli, about ladders and banisters, directly
points to the idea of a ladder or scala, similarly constructed with
rails and used for scaling walls. Hence by another proof, cancelli
have scales.
Objection 2. If something is to be defaced or rased, it should not
have been written in the first place. But in mathematics, anything
may be written in a proof that is an axiom, a hypothesis, or that
follows from previous steps in the proof by modus ponens. If something should not have been written, it did not satisfy these conditions.
Hence any proof containing a cancellation also contains an error.
Reply to Objection 2. One does not actually need to cross out anything in order to perform the abstract mathematical act of cancellation. What would be done in a formal proof is to copy the equation
over, omitting the terms that are considered to be cancelled. If this is
too difficult, the actual cancellation may be done on a piece of
scratch paper and immediately burned. Then who will know?
Objection 3. Cancellation is not always correct. For example,
2 x 0 = 0 and 314209 x 0 = O. Hence
x 0 = 314209 x O.
314209.
ANSWER THAT
39
+ y) + p = x + (y + p)
(x
+ y) + p = (x + y) + q
from
one can infer that
and hence that
p =q.
It has just been proved that the sum of cancellable numbers is itself
cancellable. If
{x} ~ X~X
is any counting system whatsoever, it can be augmented by writing
Xo
with
Xo
= X u {xo}
1= X, and by defining
fo: Xo -+ Xo
+ 1 -+ X.
+ 1) = 11;
is injective and that 1 is a cancellable number. Now one may conclude that all numbers are cancellable.
40
ARITHMETIC
Thus, the question whether two quite distinct and unequal numbers exist each of which can be subtracted from the other, either way
round you like, has definitely and positively been settled in the
negative. The answer is no. The next question would seem to be, are
there two numbers, neither of which can be subtracted from the
other, no matter how the problem is attempted? These would be two
numbers, neither of which is any bigger than the other, nor are they
the same number. The two numbers could not be compared in size;
they would be mutually incomparable.
QUESTION
Objection 1. The kinds of comparison-the absolute, comparative, and superlative, are called degrees. Hence the question refers to
the numbers of degrees used in recording temperatures. But if the
temperature exceeds a certain level, mathematics is impossible, since
mathematicians require pencils and paper and these would ignite.
Hence only small numbers are comparable to other numbers.
Reply to Objection 1. A mathematician can deal with arbitrarily
large temperatures under the most cotnfortable working conditions,
simply by inventing new scales for the measurement of temperature.
This is done by means of a 'scaling factor' which converts one
degree Fahrenheit (or Celsius) into as many degrees as one likes of
the new scale.
Objection 2. Some numbers are so large that no-one can form an
idea of their magnitude. But mathematicians cannot deal with that of
which they can form no idea; hence to compare two such great
magnitudes is beyond them.
Reply to Objection 2. Mathematical statements about natural
numbers are really, or can be converted into, statements about the
system of natural numbers, obviating the necessity for actual contemplation of huge magnitudes and other such arcane trash.
Objection 3. If any two numbers can be compared so that one is
1 is
greater, then there must be a greatest number n. But then n
greater than n, contradicting the supremacy of n. Since this is nonsense, there must be two mutually incomparable numbers.
41
ANSWER THAT
x=z+p
whence
x + y = (z + p) + y = z + (p + y)
so that z can be subtracted from x + y. Otherwise, since x can be
subtracted from z, the equation
z=x+p
holds for suitable p. Since y is subtractable, either
y=p+q
or
p =y + r;
yielding either
x+y=z+q
or
z = (x
Since all numbers of the form
+ y) + r.
1 + p,
together with 0, form a submonoid of No containing 1, the number 1
is subtractable, and so are all natural numbers.
42
ARITHMETIC
QUESTION
'-3
+ 4'
'4 - 3'
written backwards. It is really possible to take 3 from 4. Since it is
not at all possible to take 4 from 3, the expression
'3 - 4'
is a mere fiction. In practice, it is sometimes convenient to use such
a fiction; the procedure for working out the sum is as follows: Since
no-one could ever take 4 from 3, change the numbers about and take
3 from 4. The answer is 1. But it would be wrong to say that 1 is the
answer to '3 - 4', since a fictional problem cannot have a true
numerical answer. Hence, the minus sign is affixed to the 1 and -1
is given as the answer. Since both sides of the equation
'3 - 4 = -1'
are nonsense, the equation is true.
Reply to Objection 1. Good fiction is never nonsense. The mistake
here is in thinking positive numbers are more real or actual or concrete than negative numbers. Both are equally fictitious.
Objection 2. Negative numbers are not fictions. They represent
such things as debts (to take an example from the field of commerce).
Debts are only fictions if the borrower does not pay them; in that
case they are fictions because that is dishonest. But failure to pay
debts is punishable by law; hence it is wrong; and when something
is wrong, mathematicians need not pay attention to it.
Reply to Objection 2. Money is probably fictitious, too.
I ANSWER
nonsense.
THAT
43
+x=
0= x
+ (-x).
44
o. Slightly more
ARITHMETIC
with gf = tA,jg = tBo From (f) to J there exist exactly two functors
and no more, namely a: t f-+ tA and b: t f-+ tBo Then the equaliser
z:J ~Zof
.
,
is such that
45
(J----l~~J
----.~~
commutes.
Since z(A) = z(B), it is'easily seen thatZisamonoid. The invertible
morphisms in Z form a submonoid and include z(f) and z(g); hence
Z is a group. This group is called the group of integers. The composition of the morphisms in Z is usually written additively: m + n
and not mn or m 0 n. The usual notation for ZetA) or Z(tB)-they are
the same-is O. It is necessary to choose, if the usual notation is
preferred or a distinguished element is desired, whether to use z(f)
or z(g) for 1. Whichever is 1, the other must of course be -1. There
are many ways of making this choice. One might, e.g., ask z(f) and
46
ARITHMETIC
z(g) both to bring offerings. Then one could have respect unto one
of their offerings, and not have respect unto the other. [16] The
morphism unto whose offering you have not respect would then get a
mark set upon it, namely the minus sign. Or, one might flip a coin.
It is possible to get the natural numbers in a similar way. The
category f is replaced by %,
47
{I}
~Z
ARITHMETIC
5. Multiplication
One of the heresiarchs of Uqbar declared mirrors and fatherhood to
be abominable, because they multiply the visible universe. [18]
Multiply it by what, one may wish to ask? Here we pass over such
questions belonging principally to heretical theology and the investigations of TliJnistas, just as we ignore the whole matter of the
multiplication table, since this belongs properly to division.
By 'multiplication', properly speaking, a mathematician may mean
practically anything. By 'addition' he may mean a great variety of
things, but not so great a variety as he will mean by 'multiplication'.
What, then, is the main difference between addition and multiplication? The most important difference is that addition is always
49
or
Multiplication may be denoted by x or by *, or by something more
monstrous, or by nothing at all. There are other, less important
differences. Usually, addition is commutative. Multiplication may
also be commutative. Addition is usually associative. So is multiplication (usually, but not always). The main thing to remember,
for the beginner, is that the things multiplied need not be numbers;
nor need multiplying things make them more multiple, or multiplex.
(It is advisable for the beginner not to try too hard to remember
isolated facts. On a first reading, or possibly for a few readings
thereafter, it may be desirable to forget temporarily everything that
the reader has just learnt.)
Bricks are made of clay which is brought to a plastic consistency
by the admixture of a suitable quantity of water, formed into shapes
established by custom and precedent, dried in the sun, and finally
baked. They differ from the loaves of Beaulieu Derriere in that their
dimensions never vary from day to day, and in that they are not in
general square or cubical. The brick, because of its shape and because of the fact that the ratio of its sides remains constant, may be
used for the computation of volumes. Bricks have, of course, other
uses. Who has not seen, outside the tent of a particularly cheap sideshow at a travelling carnival, an advertisement of the presence within
of that destructive creature, the red Irish batt? The uses of the brick
in cosmetics and in the art of preparing camels for the journey across
the desert are too universally known to merit discussion in a work of
this sort. Slightly more mathematical is the use of bricks in connection with simplified versions of the three-body problem: by computing parabolic trajectories in intersection, one may practise the
applied mathematical art of trashing. None of the foregoing uses,it
may fairly be objected, is a proper use of bricks; in all these instances
we see bricks used, yes--:-but they are not used qua bricks. When
bricks are used qua bricks, for constructional purposes, three pro-
50
ARITHMETIC
perties at least which bricks enjoy are of great importance: bricks are
movable, rigid, and take up space. If it were not for these properties,
among others, bricks would be useless for building walls.
But are we safe in relying on these ideas? May we feel secure in our
houses, if we have allowed them to pass unquestioned? Is there
really such a thing as the volume of a brick, remaining unchanged
however the brick is displaced by rotation, translation, and the zigzag-and-swirl of Lawsonomic motion? [19] It hardly seems a blessed
hope. One way, of course, of dealing at least partially with this
frightening problem is the standard one, familiar to every school
algebraist. (Here we assume bricks whose sides are whole numbers.
Although this rules out the lovely bricks of nineteenth-century
Surrey malt factories, which had faces that were golden rectangles
[20], our result still holds good if applied to the more mundane bricks
of commerce.) The school algebraist will remind his hearer of the
commutativity and associativity of the ring Z. He will point out that
integers, when you are multiplying them, are functions, and that the
composition of functions is about the most associative thing we've
got in this sublunary vale. No doubt he will exhort you to remember
from your schooldays that the centre of a ring is a subring, and that
it contains 1. By a universal argument, he can then demonstrate
beyond chance of contradiction that the volume of a brick of integer
sides does not depend on how you turn the brick-even if you turn
it inside out. (On the question of turning cubes inside out see [21].)
51
That is, as I may have hinted, the old-fashioned, crotchety schoolboy approach to bricks. A more sensible, and not very different,
way of looking at the problem is this one: The volume of a brick of
dimensions (a, b, c) is the value at (a, b, c) of a trilinear symmetric
function
taking
(1, 1, 1) 1-+ 1.
(The latter says that a brick whose dimensions are 1 inch in one
direction, again 1 inch in a perpendicular direction, and once more
1 inch in a third direction perpendicular to them both, is 1 cubic inch
-provided the measurements (1, 1, 1) are written down in the correct
order! Note that the non-existence of such bricks is entirely immaterial; indeed, the whole question only becomes intelligible if all
the bricks involved are themselves wholly immaterial.) Obviously,
exactly one trilinear function Z3 ~ Z sending (1, 1, 1) 1-+ 1 exists;
just as obviously, the uniqueness ~akes it symmetric.
EXERCISE.
way.
EXERCISE. A brick is thrown by an extraverted undergraduate
genius through the window of the mathematics common-room at the
University of Both Putfords, Devon. It strikes the head of the Senior
Lecturer in Analytic Manipulations and shatters, falling together on
the floor in such a way that the new volume of the brick exceeds that
of the mathematics building. [22] Indeed, it is now bigger than the
Putfords. Since the mathematics department is now a vacuous body
of men, what degree must be awarded posthumously to the student?
Submit detailed plans for archaeological excavations and reconstruction of the villages and the new university, bearing in mind the
reduced density of the brick.
QUESTION
9. Whether 2 x 2
4?
ARITHMETIC
rectangles. For example, if a line segment 3 units in length is constructed perpendicular to another segment of length 2 units, and if
certain further lines parallel to these are constructed, one obtains a
rectangle divided into 6 unit squares. The fact that from a length of
2 units and a length of 3 units one obtains a rectangle of 6 units is the
reason for saying that 2 X 3 = 6. But from segments 2 units long
each, one obtains not a rectangle at all but a square. Thus one may
not say '2 X 2 = 4,' but only '22 = 4'; i.e. 'two, squared, is four'.
Objection 2. Moreover, 2 units multiplied by 2 units is not 4 units
but 4 squared units. But 4 squared is 16. Hence 2 X 2 = 16.
Replies to Objections 1 and 2. Squares are rectangles; in any case,
we are doing arithmetic, not geometry. Hence both arguments are
irrelevant. Besides, it is not at all obvious a priori that 16 is not
exactly 4.
1 ANSWER THAT 2 X 2 = 4. The first step is to replace '2' by '1 + 1'.
Few mathematicians doubt that this can be done, but few except the
subtlest logicians can put up a good defence for it against determined
opposition, at least unless they are given adequate time to prepare a
defence. The principle involved is the replacement of one thing by
something equal to it. No doubt there may be contexts in which this
may safely be done; but how hasty' can we be in assuming that we
have one here? Difficulties can certainly arise in the application of
the principle here employed. The standard example is [23]. Editions
of works by this author can easily be found in second-hand bookstores that bear on the spine the words 'by the author of Waverley'.
It is not at all unlikely that someone, somewhere, somewhen has
looked at such a book and said, 'I wonder if the author of Waverley
is Scott?' Now, as a matter of fact, it is very definitely the case that
the author of Waverley is indeed Scott himself. That being the case,
by the application of the famous principle that equals may be substituted for equals, anyone whatever, be he ever so slow-witted, may
arrive at the conclusion that the speaker might equally well, and just
as truly, have said 'I wonder if Scott is Scott?'-or, 'I wonder if the
author of Waverley is the author of Waverley?' Some mockers have
the temerity to suggest that they, at least, do not intend to be caught
pondering such idiotic tautologies. So, if equals may not always be
substituted for equals, when may they be?
53
x2=
(1
+ 1).
The brackets indicate that we add 1 and 1, and then take 2 times the
result. The next step is to say
2 x (1
+ 1) = (2 x
1)
+ (2 xl).
2 xl =2.
Since 2
+2 =
4, we are done.
Note. One may also attack the problem via the natural isomorphism
n 1-+ (11-+ n)
from the additive group Z to the additive group End(Z), whereby the
obvious ring structure of End(Z) may be transferred back to Z. It is
left to the reader to consider which of the two approaches may be the
more elegant.
6. Division
So far in this present work, it has not been possible to mention certain very interesting, natural numbers. At least, this is true on the
hypothesis that there are any interesting natural numbers. Students
of the question, whether there are any interesting natural numbers,
are divided on what answer to give. Some experts believe that all
natural numbers are interesting; others, perhaps more cautious of
hasty generalisation or less sanguine of temperament, hold the wiser
and more temperate opinion that no natural number at all is of any
interest. (This view is preferred by the author of the present work,
which should settle the matter.) Whether or not there are any interesting natural numbers, then, it has not been possible to mention
54
ARITHMETIC
[26] are said to have taught that man's soul is a number numbering
itself. In the study of mathematics, this pedagogical order must in
any case be reversed. In mathematical terms, if you are to learn to
give names to the numbers in something like the usual system, and
so to count aloud, you must first learn to divide; and that can,not be
done until you have already mastered addition, subtraction, and
multiplication. Fortunately, anyone who has carefully and attentively read the preceding pages of this book has already mastered
the arts of adding, subtracting, and mUltiplying. (Human beings
appear to have had since the earliest times the ability to multiply;
indeed this faculty seems to extend even to the higher animals, though
with them it appears to be a seasonal activity. Division, strangely,
appears to be very much an acquired taste among the human race,
though oddly enough it is commonly observed under the microscope
as a natural activity of the lowest forms of life-bacteria, protozoa,
and such. The old philosophers do not appear to have considered the
protozoan soul, but ifthey did they might well think of it as a number
dividing itself.)
Before it will be possible to go' any further, it is necessary to dispose of a ridiculous quibble, which the author's mountainous wealth
of practical teaching experience teaches him is bound to arise at this
point. Little minds love to ask big questions, or what appear to them
as big questions; never stopping to reflect how trivial the answer
must be, if only the questioner would take the trouble to think it
through. Sometimes it is necessary for the writer of such a serious
work as the present one to call a halt in the consideration of matters
of real weight and interest and to remember how weak and frail are
the reasoning powers of his lowly readers. Someone, somewhere, has
asked, 'What about the numbers at the foot of the pages? You really
had no right to have them there, since in a work of this nature, they
have no meaning as yet.' The answer will be obvious, if the reader
will only think. It is true that we have already come to pages of the
book with numbers on them that are bigger than 9. In reading a
scientific treatise, however, it is well to remember that patience is a
virtue. One could have compressed all the material of this book, up
to and including the present section, into one page. Very often, in a
book, the first page of text has no number on it at all. One could
have done this simply by telling the printer to use very tiny type. It
56
ARITHMETIC
would have been hard to read, of course. But this was not done. Why?
Because the publisher insisted. Publishers simply insist on numbering
their pages. The author protests, expostulates, threatens-all to no
avail. The author emphatically assures the troubled reader that
absolutely none of the mathematical material of this book depends
essentially on the numbering of the pages. If the pages were not
numbered everything herein contained would be as firm, as crystal
clear as it is now. And even ifit were not so, the reader will soon learn
all about these numbers; they are to be thoroughly explained, and
any nagging doubts about them will be dispelled.
But above and beyond these rather trite and obvious remarks, it is
certain from principles of aesthetic economy that the numerals at
the foot of all the pages preceding this page cannot be empty of
meaning; since as we have just seen they do not mean numbers, we
may infer that they mean something else. Hence we have shown that
the numerals have meanings other than their numerical referents:
thus establishing the bases of the science of numerology. This is of
course a very interesting remark indeed, and having turned aside for
a moment to make it, we may now smugly return to the main subject
at ha.nd.
Objection 1. The question is irrelevant to a mathematical discussion, and does not belong in a book of the present sort. Publishers
and grocers, and other simple folk of that ilk, are free to follow the
rules of their respective callings. They may decorate their books and
vegetables with whatever arcane symbols they find suitable, whether
from reasons of custom, cunning, or artistic satisfaction. Such
decorations may quite legitimately include strings of denary digits,
like 666 (a number used to designate certain pages in long books, and
certain beasts). The approval of the mathematical societies is neither
demanded nor required.
Reply to Objection 1. In and of itself, of course, the use of digits
and the paraphernalia of numeration is not proscribed, and is open
57
58
ARITHMETIC
59
19749382759345298724867432987875654578578945634543875328639
27497856?
If not, how do we know that in the system that is in popular use this
string of digits ever gets used? If there are any extra strings of digits
that do not in fact come into the counting when we start at but are
left out no matter how long we go on trying to reach them, then the
system fails to be a universal counting system.
Moreover, even to say what a string of digits is one needs No
since the strings of digits are the elements of
{o} u
U {O, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9}n
X {l, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9}.
neNo
Objection 4. Perhaps it must be admitted that the ordinary numbers written with digits have their weak points from a theoretical
point of view. On the other hand, the natural numbers, being an
abstract system, have a disadvantage or two from a practical point
of view. As an example, take the numbering of pages in books.
Everybody knows how to number them in the good old everyday
system that all the publishers use. How does one number pages
mathematically?
60
ARITHMETIC
61
S+ 1= t
Otherwise take
nl)'
S + 1 = t = t'.
lt is clear that we have defined a function from the strings of
digits to themselves. In order to show that this system is mathematically sound, we must establish the universal property. To do so it is
necessary to map the denary numerals to the naturals homomorphically. The map is of course
n-l
S f-+ LSjXJ,
j=O
L9X.j+ 1 =
xn
j=O
x ft
1 = (x - 1)
j=O
n-l
L SjX} = So
+ XL SjXJ-l
j=O
j=l
n-2
= So
+ XL Sj+IX},
j=O
62
ARITHMETIC
63
12
117
1~
l17
117
o rem.
It is now necessary to note that 14~2 = 1352. Note that in dividing
by 3, one must not accept 2 as a remainder; the only remainders
allowed are I, 0, and 1. The general rule for an odd divisor is that
the modulus of the remainder must be smaller than half the divisor.
Leaving for posterity this marvellous simplification and generalisation of the workings of ordinary arithmetic problems,t the author
passes on to the more mundane question below.
QUESTION 11. Does plain long division, as it was before all these
elegant variations were introduced, give the right answer?
t Posterity will wish to know how to pronounce the new digits; the suggestion
that they be called rna!, eerht, OWl, eno (and evif) seems to me to have merit. It is
due to L. Sabroc.
64
ARITHMETIC
Taking N = n.lOk-
QUESTION 12. Whether it is true that all numbers that will divide
exactly by 2 end in an even figure, 0, 2, 4, 6, 8?
65
5x2=1.
Since 5 X 2 is known to be 10, and since 1 + 0 is indeed 1, we see
that the original working was correct, and that indeed
14 X 11 = 154.
66
ARITHMETIC
the method of casting out nines, but merely to show how it is done.)
To make perfectly sure the method is understood, let us contemplate
another worked example:
3991
X 19
75829
By casting out the two nines, the number 3991 becomes 3 + 1 = 4.
Similarly, 19 becomes 1. Casting out the nine, the answer 75829
becomes 7 + 5 + 8 + 2 = 22, and by casting nines out of this
it becomes 4. Since the problem has reduced to 4 X 1 = 4, it must
be that the answer was correct.
Here then is the general rule for checking any arithmetic problem
by the method of casting out nines: To cast nines out of a number,
be thorough. First cast out all the nines you can see-any nines that
occur as digits, and any sets of digits that add up to nine. Now add
up the digits of the number. But do not stop there, if you can help it.
If the new number so obtained has any nines in it, cast them out. If
there remain more than one digit, add up the digits. Continue in this
way, by repeated application of casting nines and summing digits,
until all that is left of the number is a'single digit, which will not be
9 but may be O. Now do this to every single number that occurs in
the problem. Finally, do the problem all over again, but using the
new numbers that you have obtained as replacements for the old
numbers by the method of casting out all the nines in the old numbers.
When you have got the answer to the new problem that you have done
with the new numbers, cast the nines out of it, too. Compare this
with the number that was obtained from the original answer by the
casting out of nines. They should be the same.
No-one has ever seriously asserted that by the casting out of nines
you will necessarily detect any error you might care to make in
arithmetic. For instance, 17 X 17 reduces to 8 X 8 or 64, and this
gives 6 + 4 which is 10, which gives 1. If someone, by some slip,
obtained the answer
17
X 17
100
67
then casting nines out of 100 gives 1 as well, and the method fails to
detect the error. It is not a perfect method for detecting any error, no
matter how gross. But there is the question of the accuracy of the
procedure when it seems to have detected an error.
+ n) =
S(m)
+ S(n)
but also
S(mn)
SCm) S(n).
Note that the first equation above could have been proved directly,
if we had had at our disposal the methods of ordinary school addition,
with carrying and all the rest of it. This subject has been excluded
from the present work, as being somewhat too abstruse for treatment
in an elementary work of this kind.
How effective is the method of enneekbole? If an arbitrary wrong
answer is given to an arithmetic problem, the casting out of nines
will show up the error about 8/9ths ofthe time-in the sense that the
68
ARITHMETIC
V 3
(N) M
=?
70
or such that
p
p
=
=
(-p).x,
I.x,
or even
p = (-I).x.
The same number cannot be used in each case, but there is always
such a number x that the equation is true, no matter which of the
four equations you are trying to solve. Note that this is true even if p
is not prime. Moreover, unless pis 0, the two numbers p and -p are
actually distinct: p =1= - p. (If p = 0, the fact that p has four factors
is even more obvious simply by solving = n. x, which can be done
for any value of n whatever-and in this case one can use the same
solution for every value of n.) There is only one exception to the rule
that every number has four factors at least: this exception is the
71
-p
~x~
1
;C
-1
The cases p =1= - P and 1 =1= -1 have already been considered (it was
shown above that 1 =1= 0), and the other four can easily be reduced to
two:
p=l=l
and
P =1= -1.
10 = 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2,
as well as by the addition of fives:
10 = 5 + 5.
A prime number is then defined as a number that can only be obtained
by the addition of units. Note that it is not considered fair to say
that 7 can be obtained in different ways; one might wish to say that
we have both
7=1+1+1+1+1+1+1
and
7 = 7,
and we might say that the second equation shows 7 as obtained by the
addition of sevens, in fact by the adding up of a string of sevens so
short that it consists of only one seven. But Euclid (the author ofthe
work in question) does not go aloqg with that. That is not allowed as
an addition. So since 7 can only be obtained by the addition of units,
it is a prime. Note that, for some strange reason, the unit is not
considered to be a number at all. Since 1 is not a number, the question does not arise in this theory whether 1 is prime or not. (Even ifit
did arise, it is not true that 1 can only be obtained by the addition of
units; it cannot be obtained by addition at all.) The other question,
that of identifying associates, is easily settled: these were always
identified by the ancient mathematicians, to the extent that they
never bothered with negative numbers at all.
A correct definition of prime numbers, then, and one that does
not require the absorption of ancient modes of thought, is this:
We require first of all to know what is afactor of a number. If two
numbers can be multiplied together to give a third number, each of
the two numbers is afactor of the third. A prime number, then, is a
number that has exactly two factors; for this purpose, we consider
two numbers to be the same if one of them is the product of the
other times a unit. (A unit is a number that has an inverse in the ring
under consideration; thus, -1 is a unit in the ring of integers, since
(-1). (-1) = 1, while 509 is not a unit, since 1/509 is not an integer.)
The two factors of a prime number are necessarily the number and 1.
74
The number 1 is not prime, since any factor of 1 is ipso facto a unit.
The number
4,294,967,297
is obviously not prime, since it is 641 X 6,700,417; on the other hand
170,141,183,460,469,231,731,687,303,715,884,105,727
is said to be prime. It is often stated that the numbers 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13
are prime. Let us consider the first case.
QUESTION
that the amoeba is the sore thumb. We mark box A and hastily
proceed to the next exercise in discernment.
Mathematical arguments, however, must be independent of discernment. The most insensitive person must be able to follow them.
The reason why 2 is the only even prime is that every other even
number is divisible by 2, as well as by itself and 1.
Objection 2. People have been contemplating the number 2 for a
very long time. Either you must accept the fact that nobody has ever
been able to break this number up into factors, and hence you must
admit that it is prime, or else you must say that the problem has
never resulted in a definite solution and that very likely no one will
ever know if 2 is prime.
Reply to Objection 2. Mathematically, it is indeed inconclusive
that nobody has ever succeeded in finding any numbers that divide
2 exactly, other than the numbers 1 and 2 which obviously do this;
this does not at all show that no such numbers exist. On the other
hand, it may be quite easy to show that there are no such numbers.
In mathematics, if one approach Qoes not work, one must always try
another; according to the principle catus multifariam deglubitur.
I ANSWER THAT the number 2 is prime. It is easily seen that the only
numbers between 0 and 2, including 0 but excluding 2, are 0 and 1.
Thus the remainder left by any number on division by 2 is either 0 or
1. Hence the quotient ring
Zj2Z,
prime ribs are there on a beef?' It is surprising how many chefs think
the number one rib is prime.
QUESTION
factor?
This question is of great practical interest. If the answer is no, then
when the mathematics master in ,a school sets the children some
numbers to find the prime factors of as homework, they (or their
parents, whichever one does the homework) can bring up the easy
retort, 'Perhaps there are no prime factors. Some numbers haven't
got any, you know. Hadn't you better show us the existence of these
things you are asking us to find?' An organised use of this line may
be an unfair trick, but it is guaranteed to produce a diversion. The
maths master is not allowed to crack the whip these days; he is
expected to encourage an enquiring spirit. This makes it easy to
disrupt the maths class. On the other hand, the answer may be yes;
perhaps we are about to find that all numbers except I and - I have
got prime factors. This too can be turned to good account. There are
two main approaches, and they should be used separately or successively, not both at once. The first approach is to take an eager-tolearn attitude. 'Oh, Mr Samwise, I say! These prime numbers are
terribly interesting. Fantastic! Gosh, sir, is it really true that every
number has got prime factors?' The important thing, after this
rather soft, gooey beginning, is to hang on like the British bulldog.
Insist on a rigorous proof. If you have any suspicion that the master
is trying to sneak through a simplified explanation or an argument
that is merely plausible, the right thing to do would be to gently hint
78
{xn: x EZ}
is not all ofZ. Consider the class Y of all proper ideals of Z containing
a as a subset; the set-inclusion relation c makes Y a partially
ordered set. Now consider any subclass of Y with the property that
if b, c: E C(j' then either b c c: or c: c b; the union of C(j' is trivially a
proper ideal of Z containing as a subset every ideal of C(j' and also
containing a as a subset. By Zorn's Lemma, a proper ideal m of Z
exists that is maximal with respect to the property of being a proper
ideal of Z containing aas a subset. Hence m is maximal with respect
79
just any of the popular meanings of the words will do. The word
'factor' in English often has the meaning 'Institor, negotiator,
procurator negotiorum; that is, an huckster, a foreman of a shop, one
that goes about with linen or woollen cloth'. If one spells the other
word 'deviser'-and this would itself be a great mistake-then one
might get the idea that the greatest common deviser, or the highest
common factor, as it is sometimes expressed, must be the most
important man in the House of Commons. This personage is often
chosen for his ability to devise, and he is usually accounted the greatest or highest common person in the land. Indeed, divisions are not
at all uncommon in the House. It would be a serious mistake to
think that the greatest common divisor is the Prime Minister. The
greatest common divisor has nothing whatever to do with Parliament
or the Cabinet at all; it is erroneous even to think of the Composite
Ministers as common divisors. (This is the name sometimes given to
the ministers of Her Majesty's Cabinet who are not Prime.)
Furthermore, we must carefully guard against the idea that
common factors are in the habit of picking their noses in public, or
that they say 'Oy loike poineapple oice,' 'Haiw naiw, braiwn caiw,'
or indeed that they are guilty of any vulgarity whatsoever. Any
mental picture of a highest common factor drunkenly staggering up
the down escalator in a department store on Christmas Eve, or
ecstatically chanting 'Hare Krishna' in an awful accent while chewing
convolvulus seeds, would be misleading. It is not that kind of 'high'
that is meant.
By now it should be clear that the number of misconceptions about
greatest common divisors that are possible, while perhaps not
precisely infinite, is colossal.
This is why it may be desirable to consult a standard arithmetic
book if you want to know what the phrase means. There one is
likely to see 'The highest common factor or h.c.f. is the biggest of the
common factors oftwo or more numbers.' This approximates rather
closely to the right idea, but it has some flaws. After all, does it not
seem queer to take all the trouble of defining the highest common
factor of 'two or more numbers', and yet stop short by not even
discussing the highest common factor of a single number, taken all by
itself? It is even more ludicrous, though perhaps excusable, to leave
unstated what one means by the greatest common divisor of no
81
numbers at all. But these are trifling quibbles; the only change
necessary is to make it read, 'The h.c.f. (of a set of numbers) is the
biggest of the common factors of the numbers.' This allows the set of
numbers to be empty.
A more serious difficulty is with the word 'biggest'. There can be
no doubt that this means just what it says. We have no choice, in
the context of any known standard arithmetic text, but to interpret
one number to be bigger than a second if the second can be subtracted from the first, leaving a positive answer. That is what bigger
always means. And a number is the biggest of all the common
divisors if it is bigger than every other common divisor. Given all this
knowledge, we may ask: what is the highest common factor of the
numbers 0 and O? (There is no rule that says the two numbers may
not be the same. If someone insists that they may not be the same,
we can ask the same question in a different way: what is the highest
common factor of O?) Now, you see, if you are to apply the rule
given in all the books, you have got to take all the divisors of 0; and
then look for the biggest. That, seems easy. First of all, we shall
identify a number with any other number obtained from it by
multiplication by a unit. All the arithmetic books do this in this
context; it means ignoring negative numbers. We note that 0 is a
factor of 0, since 0 = 275 x O. That is one factor of 0 out ofthe way.
Then also, the number 1 is a factor of 0, since 0 == 0 x 1. And since
o = 0 x 2, the number 2 is a factor of O. After a length of time
which varies from individual to individual, one may wake up to the
fact that every number is a factor of O. Wonderful! We now can be
certain that we have found all the factors of O. Now to find the
biggest. By this we obviously mean a number that is bigger than every
other number. Again, it is a variable length of time before people
wake up to the fact that there is no such number. If n is the highest
common factor of 0 and 0, then n
1 is also a common factor, so n
is bigger than n
1. This means that n 1 can be subtracted from
n leaving a positive answer. This answer is -1. In fact, it can be
shown by trichotomy that -1 is not a positive number. Now the
trouble with all this is not, as it would appear, that 0 has not got a
highest common factor. The whole trouble is in the use of the word
'biggest'.
And of course it is a most puerile error to say that the highest
82
factor?
Objection 1. Before someone came along and made the definition
explained above, one had no trouble finding highest common factors.
Take the numbers 4 and 8, for example. The only numbers that divide
both of them are 1, 2, and 4. Now if anybody gives you a set of
numbers, at least if it is a finite set, you can find the biggest of them.
In this case, 4 is bigger than 1 or 2. But if someone gives you a finite
set of numbers-take, for example, 2 and 3-can you find the highest
of them? In the case under consideration (2 and 3) neither of the
numbers divides evenly into the other without leaving a remainder.
So neither is higher than the other. Then which is the highest? It
seems that there is no highest number in this set.
Reply to Objection 1. It is true that a set of numbers need not
contain a highest. This sort of thing often occurs in hierarchies. Two
elements in a hierarchy (which is only a colourful name, here, for a
83
PROBLEM.
t Some purists would say, 'no higher among 2 and 3', or even perhaps 'between
2 and 3'. Since the number of elements in the set is irrelevant to the argument,
it is mathematically better to ignore the fact that there are two; this leaves us
with the superlative, which is the general case.
84
715-413=302
413-302=111
302-111.2=80
111-80=31
80-31.2=18
31 -18=13
18-13=5
13-5. 2=3
5-3=2
3-2=1
2-1.2=0
The last number obtained on the right-hand side, not counting 0,
is the h.c.f. If both the numbers at the beginning were positive, this
method takes a finite number of steps; if the smaller of the numbers
has three digits you will be finished in less than twenty steps.
Now consider doing the same problem by the so-called normal
method of the school-books. First we must split 715 into primes (we
have as yet no assurance that this is possible, but it may be; and we
may not need any of the primes we have never heard of, such as 97,
or 131,071). Since 715 ends in 5, it is divisible by 5; we find
715
= 5x143.
85
Now by casting out nines, 143 = 8 (mod 9) and hence is not a zerodivisor (mod 9); therefore 3 does not divide 143. Since 143 does
not end in 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8, it is not divisible by 2; since it does not
end in 0 or 5 it is not divisible by 5. Since 143 leaves remainder
3 =1= 0 on division by 7, it is not divisible by 7. Trying 11, we find
143 = 11. 13. Hence
715
5 x 11 x 13.
Attacking 413 in a similar way, we find that 2,3, and 5 do not divide
413-for the same reasons mentioned when 143 was under consideration. Then we find that 7 divides 413, and in fact 413 = 7 x 59. Now
the list of prime numbers that the average user of a school arithmetic
book carries in his head is not long enough to take in 59; he will not
be sure that 59 is a prime, but he will also not be able to think of a
factor other than 59 or 1. If he knows a little elementary number
theory, he may know that if 59 is not prime; then since it is not a
perfect square (being congruent to 3 modulo 4, which perfect squares
are not) it has a prime factor less than its square root. Since 59 < 64,
and .y64 = 8, he will reflect that such a prime will be at most 7.
There are four such primes: 2, 3, 5, and 7. By one trick or another,
or by actual division in digits, it can be verified that none of these
goes into 59 without leaving a remainder. Hence
413
7x59
and the second number has been factored into primes. None of these
primes (neither of them, if one has counted and found there are two)
is also one of those in the particular factorisation of715 that happens
to have been found, though it would take some work to show that
some different way of writing 7i5 as the product of primes might not
contain 7 or 59. The directions in the school-book do not say explicitly
what to do in this case, but the teacher will just possibly know, and
the right thing to do is this: you must still multiply together all the
primes common to both factorisations. Now in this case there are
none, so we must mUltiply together no numbers at all. This is easy if
you know how to do it, and the answer is that the product of no
numbers at all, multiplied together, is L Hence the h.c.f. of 715 and
413 is 1.
86
QUESTION
:3
noENo
P~No
V p "> no
=?
f(p)
PEP
= I1 p f(P).
pEP
87
No
t"-.J
+ sab,
rpb
88
89
doesn't it? In case you still haven't caught on, the first example is
worked for you. Here goes:
(1) 8, 75, 3, 9, _ .
Now all you have to do is look at the numbers, and then in the
blank provided write in the number that seems to you logically ought
to go there. Now read the numbers again: eight, seventy-five, three,
nine, ... What was that you were about to say? Was it 17? Right!
The only number any sensible person would put there is 17. So we
write in the number 17 in the space provided, like this:
(1) 8, 75, 3, 9, 17.
That's all you have to do. Good luck!
Everyone has encountered one of these little tests, and we all know
how much depends on them-that place in a really good university,
that step up in the firm that has been hanging fire for years, that
membership of MENSA-the chance to look down on more and more
stupid people who cannot guess the next number.
Really, it is inexcusable that th.\s art is not taught in every school.
The scientific fact is universally acknowledged that only intelligent
people can do these puzzles; moreover, nobody denies that there is a
crying need for intelligence in all areas of the national economy.
Hence, and one would think the inference would be obvious to any
person who can guess the next number even in the easy example we
saw just above, all that needs to be done in order to cure a vast
proportion of the world's ills is to teach everyone to guess the next
number. Because then, naturally, everyone would be intelligent. The
only case of which the writer knows in which so simple a remedy is
known to exist for so serious a social disease is that of mental illness.
It is universally accepted that by examining a man's handwriting,
trained graphologists can determine what is his mental character, and
in particular diagnose any tendencies to violence, mania, etc. Yet
nothing is done to teach sane handwriting! But, lest we deceive ourselves, that might involve some difficulty. Good handwriting is not
acquired overnight. Fortunately, the ability to answer the sort of
puzzle that is the subject of this section can be acquired in anything
from a few seconds to an hour.
There is only one little snag. The people who set the intelligence
tests are a very special breed. After you learn how to answer the sort
90
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
5,4, 3, 2, _ .
2; 4, 6, 8, _ .
1, 3, 5, 7, _ .
1,2,4,8, 16, _ .
And now here are some of the answers one is likely to get, with the
reasoning behind them.
Example 1. In order to see more clearly the relationship among
the numbers, let us draw a graph (Figure 1).
92
5,4, 3, 2, 1.
Example 2. This time, if the numbers are plotted on a graph, we
do not get a straight line. Trying to think of something else to do, we
first take the logarithms to the base 2, and then plot the graph. These
are: logz 1 = 0, logz 2 = 1, logz 4 = 2, logz 8 = 3, logz 16 = 4.
Hence the graph will be as shown in Figure 2: a straight line; the
extrapolation gives 5, and taking 2 s we get 32. Thus the answer is
1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32.
Emphatically, this is not the method being presented here. Not
everyone can get the correct answer by this sort of argument. Before
explaining the sensible approach to the problem, it was thought
useful to remind the reader how. he is expected to do the problem.
This approach is not systematic. Who could guess that one would
get a straight line by taking the logarithms of the numbers in the
fourth example? Why not take the exponential function of the
numbers, or the inverse tangent?
One easily proves by induction that iff is a polynomial function
of degree <; n, and if fix;) = 0 for every integer i such that 0 <; i
<; n wherever (Xi) 0 <: i <:n is a finite sequence of real numbers indexed by the set of integers i such that 0 <; i <; n with the property
that Xi *- Xj if i *- j, then f is identically zero. Moreover, the polynomial function
(under the same hypotheses about (XI)) has degree <; n, and sends
Xi J--+ Yi for 0 <; i -< n; it must be the unique polynomial that does
so. This method provides a systematic method for solving our
problem, which gives the formula
1
0, then we get 1
+0+0+0+0=
1;
if x = 2 we get
if x
= 3 we get
1+
g + ~~ - g + n = 8;
and so on.
If we apply this formula in the case x = 5, we get the answer
1+
g +
2271 -
Ill-
+ 611
31.
an = 2",
where of course the first number of the sequence is considered as the
zeroth or noughtth number of the sequence. On the other hand, our
own work, which was based on a system, gives
96
allowed only one atom of any element at all for each letter. There is
no restriction on the number one is allowed to write down as the
answer; but to avoid unnecessary explanations we shall restrict it to
be an integer. Just write this number on the line provided. (This line
may be extended if it is not long enough; and if the number is too
long to actually write during the probable lifetime of the reader,
simply think of the number as written in.) Since I do not know what
number you have written in, let us call it as. Since there is nothing
special about the number 5, let us assume that to an arbitrary finite
sequence
(ao, al ... , an-I)
(3) 1, 3, 5, 7, 19.
(4) 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 19.
1>
97
such that abc =1= 0; and 1 if n ;;;. 3 and there does-since all that is
what I have in mind, he can tell you it. What he cannot tell you is
whether all the terms of the sequence are 0, or some of them are 1.
He cannot tell you that because the answer is unknown, not only to
him and to me but to everyone. He has no minds to read about the
answer in. That sort of question is a good one on any intelligence
test: namely, the sort of question that has never been answered, but
is known to have only one correct answer. At the opposite extreme
from this is the question that is known to have all possible answers
98
5. Fractions
Fractions are usually introduced to us in terms of pies. Suppose, for
instance, that seven greedy boys wish to eat three large apple piesit is only a supposition. One might try to solve the problem by the
methods of arithmetic in integers; this would not allow one to cut
the pies, a most inappropriate condition. It is very silly not to cut
pies; apple pies, especially, are eaten with a fork, and not with the
fingers, and are eaten more easily without being cut. If the problem
is to find out how to share the pies in case they may not be cut, it
ought really to be reformulated thus: Suppose that seven greedy
boys wish to eat three large oysters. The oyster, as everyone is well
aware, is never cut. (It is not true, by the way, that oysters may not
be chewed. They should be taken whole into the mouth, and one
must not bite off pieces; also, of. course, one must never remove
partly chewed oysters from the mouth in order to inspect them.
Part of the fun of eating oysters is the tantalising thought of how
ghastly and sickening the insides must look, and once the insides
have been viewed all the spice goes out of the procedure for many
people. Then, too, if you look at the insides of your oyster it is just
possible that you will lose your nerve, and be unable to finish. That
would brand you as a coward and a chicken for life, and no woman
could love you after such craven behaviour.) In order to finish the
oysters without any of those inequities of distribution which the pure
mind of childhood finds so intolerable, the little lads realise the
necessity of a homomorphism Z ~ Z sending 7 ~ 3; putting, if you
will, the seven boys round the three oysters. Or else-since there are
seven of them, they may be excused for formulating the problem in
various forms at the start-one seeks an integer n such that under
the unique symmetrical bilinear map
ZxZ~Z
99
almost mingled with the trail of saliva which there poured forth
when by an unconscious reaction the little pink tongue flicked out
and caught it gratefully.
The boy spoke with the calm of despair. 'Can't be done,' he said
manfully. 'You will all want to know the reason; I am sensible to
that, so here it is. I'll tell you what: let me put the argument to you
in the form" of questions, and if you will, do you all answer me in
chorus.' On receiving their agreement to this mode of discourse,
number seven began his pitch. 'Tell me, is the number 3 prime, or
composite l'
The answer came in a sextet: 'Prime, though you oUght really to
have asked, is it prime, composite, or a unit; those are the three
alternatives.'
'I stand corrected, fellows. You forgot to mention 0; that is a class
to itself. Still, the point is made. Very well then. In what way may
a prime number be the image under a homomorphism from the
integers to the integers of a number not a unit l'
'That can only happen in one way,' came the reply; there Was no
polyphony, but simple unison, fo'r these were simple country lads.
'The homomorphism must be an isomorphism.'
'You have struck the nail on the head with perfect orthogonality,
mates,' spoke the inventor of the demonstration. 'And which isomorphisms exist from the group of integers to itself?'
'There are two only, as generally recognised; that is to say,
negation, and the identity.'
'Right again!' cried the interlocutor, 'though we ought really to
have spoken of endomorphisms and automorphisms a moment ago;
nevertheless, the terms used will serve. Finally, you must tell me,
what are the images under both these isomorphisms, or automorphisms if you find the term preferable, of the number 71 Is either of
them 31'
A gloomy tone of finality rang in the still, hot country air as the
answer came in chorus: 'Under the one, -7, and under the other, 7.
Neither of these numbers is 3.' Six more tears trickled down, and
were absorbed by six tongues. The seventh child made as if not to
notice.
The minds of the young are volatile, and not disposed to rest for
long on one thing. One of the boys remarked that they might have
102
noted, if their senses had not overpowered their other faculties (he
was referring to the sight of oysters, and to the Pavlovian reaction
of the saliva in flowing out of the comers of their mouths) that a very
similar occurrence was recorded in the Bible. The others recognised
immediately his reference to King David and the water which his men
procured for him at great danger through the enemy lines; because it
was generally thought that except for difficulties of division it might
have been shared out among the army, whereas in fact it had been
poured out on the ground. They said nothing of all this, but one
other of the lads remembered a bottle of root beer that had been
buried a year ago, and ought by now to be ready; and the clutch of
rattlesnake eggs that a third lad had been incubating in his pocket
was produced, and found to have begun to hatch through the good
offices of the sun, which had been beating down steadily on that area
of the boy's shirt during their deliberations. The oysters were added
to the writhing mass in the pocket, and the seven set off to procure a
spade, and soon mathematics was forgotten for a time.
Now if those boys had been of the bookish, studious kind, that
stays indoors all day in the summer to work out mathematics
problems, they might have applied the idea of division in the
Euclidean domain of integers, and come out with the fact that on
division by 7, the number 3 leaves quotient 0 and remainder 3; as it
was, being red-blooded fellows they solved this problem informally
and practically by eating no oysters each and feeding the remaining
three molluscs to the snakes. How many snakes there were does not
matter-if snakes eat oysters at that age, it is unlikely that they do so
with fastidious manners, insisting on equal apportionment and
swallowing whole. In any case the question did not occur to the
seven boys, and in their healthy outdoor way they could not care
less for such hair-splittings and refinements. They did remember,
however, to improve the snakes' appetite by the addition of a couple
of shakes of Tabasco Sauce, which Q.C. usually carried about with
him.
But apple pies-to return to the starting-point of the discussionare something quite different from oysters. Nobody loses his appetite
when he sees an apple pie cut-not if it is a good apple pie, not if the
physical properties of the crust and of the filling are what they should
be, not if the aroma emanating therefrom is the one we expect. No,
103
indeed. People do cut apple pies, and that is one of the reasons why
the integers alone have not been considered sufficient for all mathematical purposes, even applied ones.
QUESTION 19.
104
nx=a.
To make everything as simple and neat as possible, one may also
wish to require that if x =1= 0 and if nx = 0 then n = 0; and that
tells us that we are looking for an abelian group G such that
Z~End(G)
(a
+ bx) (c + dx) E C
is an equivalence, where
c + dx
= c - dx.
Let G be the quotient; i.e., the set of equivalence classes under this
equivalence. Because the equivalence is compatible with the monoid
structure, G is clearly a monoid with the structure inherited from M.
106
QUESTION
QUESTION
minator?
I ANSWER THAT in a sense, a rational number has a numerator and a
denominator, and in a sense this is not so. There is no way of taking
a rational number and getting out of it a numerator and a denominator, unless one is willing to accept several numerators and several
denominators, or unless one is willing to study the subject known as
107
reduction to lowest terms. But on the other hand, if one is given the
numerator and denominator to begin with, and if the denominator
is not 0, then it is possible to get a rational number and only one out
of the numerator and the denominator. In civilised terminology,
one would distinguish between fractions on the one hand and
rational numbers on the other. A fraction is merely an element of
Z x (Z";'" {O}), whereas a rational number is an element of Q.
To find the rational number associated with a numerator N and a
denominator D, one simply maps (N, D) to Q, considered as End(Q),
by taking the product in the latter of the endomorphism associated
with the integer N and the inverse of the automorphism associated
with the integer D. By previous remarks and exercises, the resulting
map from fractions to rationals
Z (xZ '" {O}) ~ Q
i s surjective. The fraction (N, D) is commonly written as N / D, and
this same symbol is often used for the rational number obtained
from the fraction. As fractions, 3/4 and 27/36 are distinct, or
3/4 = 27/36;
whereas
3/4 = 27/36
if they are rational numbers. Fractions are of course rather ridiculous
and pointless objects, and both the idea and the word are best
forgotten. Rational numbers are lovely, civilised and useful things.
That may be why they are called rational numbers.
108
Z X (Z '" {O})~ Q.
Once a civilised rational number is available, it is possible to get to
work and do something. Let the rational number be q. As we know,
the set D of integers d such that
dqeZ
is not empty; trivial examination shows that D is an ideal. Since
D =1= {O}, the ideal has a non-zero generator D. Taking
Dq=N,
109
(I
D-N
+ 1)----n-;
110
Write as fractions:
-ni; -i;
write as mixed numbers:
54/-3; -9/-2.
(5) How to add fractions
The sum of two fractions is of course not well defined. Any fraction
or mixed number can be considered as the sum of two fractions or
mixed numbers if it represents the sum of the two rationals that are
represented by the two fractions or mixed numbers. Definite rules
for computing the sum of two rationals by representing them and
obtaining a fraction or mixed number representing the sum from the
two representations have, nevertheless, been devised. In ordinary
practice, despite their totally impractical mode of writing, mixed
numbers are more commonly used in such computations than fractions. In order to explain how this is done, it is necessary to use a
special symbol 0 to stand for any of I, N, or D that is not really
ID
N'
+ I'D"
there are several cases. If both I and I' are positive integers or 0,
then the result is either
N'D
,)ND'
(
1+1
DD'
or else
(I + I'
ND'+N'D- DD'
DD'
,
+ 1)
111
or
in present notation o~. This is the only case when the place of I is
filled by the integer 0 in writing mixed numbers. In computing I + I'
or any of the other sums and products, certain special rules must be
observed if any of I, I', N, N' is 0.
(i) In addition, 0 acts like 0; thus, 0 + 3 = 3.
(ii) In multiplication, 0D = 0 and N0 = N, which we may
express by saying that 0 is absorbing on the left and neutral on the
right, like British toilet paper.
(iii) It is sometimes necessary to use D'D as denominator instead,
as in the case 0 + l
(iv) 0 + 0 = 0 + 0 = 0.
In case one only of I, I' is a negative integer or is -, any of the
following forms may be the correct answer: (say I' < 0 or I' = - )
(I _ I')ND' - N'D
DD'
DD' -ND' +N'D
DD'
+ 1)
or
(I - I'
or
or
N'D.
(I _ I')-ND'
DD'
house and the cafeteria; the fact being known in the metropolitan
area, only tourists are eaten on most days. Today, the only tourists
are the boys from Fervyn Towers of Learning. Old 'Chock-full-ofvermin' is in the 100. The lions lick their whiskers and prowl smugly
back to the lion house. 'Can't say exactly,' was the headmaster's
reply to anxious parental enquiries after the hols commenced-and
those words, at least, were spoken true. 'Some of them may have got
lost at the "zoo", of course. An interesting question. Are you sure
you had a boy here?'
_
It must not be thOUght, however, that vagueness went with want of
curiosity or with pedagogical apathy in Dr C.-F.-far from it. He
went so far as to prevail on the head gardener of the zoological
garden to have the stomachs of 25 of the lions pumped, and the
contents sorted. 'Unheard of, sir,' was the initial reaction of this
official; but the good Doctor plied him with educational anecdotes,
and reminded him that the schools could not be expected to produce
the required quota of zoological gardeners unless the gardeners took
an interest in education. The curator (as he was also called) mollified.
'Better see to it myself, you know. Can't trust these young fellows
these days. Would the boys benefit by a personal report from myself?'
It was agreed that the results would be presented at assembly in the
Great Hall down at Pummidge in the near future. Briefly, it can be
stated that every 25 lions managed 18 boys among them.
'And now, lads,' said the Doctor after the vote of thanks, 'I have
a practical exercise for you in the mUltiplication of fractions. How
many steak pies were eaten by each lion ? You know the facts, and you
should be able to visualise the problem. Think of pies inside boys,
and boys inside lions. For artistic expression, there is a prize for the
most vivid painting of the meal. Those doing military science will
show the optimum formations for the armies involved: lion, boy,
and pie. For social science... .' Only the arithmetic problem need
detain us here. Let m be the rational number corresponding to the
meal in which the boys eat and the pies are eaten. Thinking of m as an
endomorphism of Q, we have m: 451--+ 12. If M is the endomorphism
whereby lions eat and boys are eaten, then M: 18 1--+ 25. Since these
are Z-module endomorphisms we may also write
M
18 X 45 -+ 18 X 12 -+ 25 X 12,
114
115
116
3
ALGEBRA
1. The wonderful quadratic formula
The quadratic formula is an amazing discovery of the utmost utility
in solving the most multifarious practical problems, such as abound
in the best texts of school algebra. One example will suffice to illustrate its depth and range of application.
Muscular M. Boulangiaire, the 'baker of the picturesque village of
Beaulieu Derriere, makes three kinds of loaves in his shop (Figure
3). The first kind is a flat square of side x; the second is an ordinary
French loaf, just x units long and one unit wide; and the third loafit is really more a bun than a loaf-again a square one like the first,
but measuring one unit along each side. All loaves have exactly the
same height.
M. Boulangiaire knows just how much dough goes into the one-byone loaf, or bun. He also knows, of course, just how much dough he
has prepared on any particular day-in fact, this never varies; there
is always just enough dough for 113006 buns. What does vary is the
number x, which tells how long the French loaves are and determines
the size of the x-by-x square. The baker's method of work is the
following: By enquiries among his customers, he determines what
numbers of the several loaves will be required for the morrow. Let
us suppose that today he has learned that tomorrow's demand will
be for seventeen variable-sided square loaves, for 5310 ordinary
117
....
~
~
..... -
If '::~; _____
--- . .
"""'''I~
II
.r'--'~.
~o(----
x --_.
ALGEBRA
Figure 4. Crimean Goth eating bread. Note the straight, fair hair, H, and the
typically Arian tetragonocephalic forehead, F.
are Arian heretics and believe it a 'sin to eat any but square bread.
This is because Ulfilas' (lost) translation of Genesis has the error 'In
the shape (rather than 'sweat') of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread',
The demand for the one-by-one buns alone was in fact more than the
dough on hand could supply, which made the baker a little pessimistic, but he went ahead and worked out the quadratic equation.
The Goths moved on, leaving the good baker a sadder but wiser
man. The ensuing efforts of comparative philologists to trace the
further course of the linguistic group have so far proved fruitless.
Show that the quadratic equation had two purely imaginary roots
(at least one Goth ordered a variable-sided square loaf). Explain the
meaning of this answer in practical terms so as to be readily understood by (i) a provincial baker with some school maths; (ii) a Crimean
Goth.
Our M. Boulangiaire is a rather indecisive man when he is deprived
of the moral support of algebra. Especially since the August catastrophe he has been bothered by the recurring thought that one day
119
in his daily algebra he might find two distinct, positive roots for the
bread equation. How would one choose in such a case? As far as he
can see, nothing in the mathematics would give one the slightest clue
about which of the two solutions to use. One could take either value
for x, and either way the dough would exactly suffice to fill all the
orders. What a terrible responsibility, to make the choice all unaided!
Can you put M. Boulangiaire's mind at ease?
The quadratic formula says that to find the roots of
ax2 + bx + c = 0
you must take the square root of b2 - 4ac; then the roots are
-b + y'(b 2 - 4ac)
2a
and
-b - y'(b 2 - 4ac)
2a
The formula involves no difficulty in itself so long as a =1= O. If
a = 0 then the formula is, of course, nonsense, since 0 is absorbing
in any ring and hence if 0- 1 existed we should have 0 = 00":'1 = 1.
By definition, y'(b 2 - 4ac) is a number such that
{y'(b 2 - 4aC)}2 = b2 - 4ac,
so that a trivial verification yields
-b + y'(b 2 - 4aC))2
b(-b
a(
2a
+ y'(b2 2a
4aC))
0
+c= .
-b - y'(b 2 - 4ac)
The same thing works for .
2a
.
Note that these formulas involve the use of the operation y', known
as the square root operation.
QUESTION
numbers?
ALGEBRA
121
and if the side of the larger triangle is 1 then it follows that the
hypotenuse is y2 by the fact that the perpendicular bisects the
hypotenuse and by similar triangles. But this argument is invalid,
since it is customary to establish geometry on the basis of an ordered
field and not vice versa. Let us try harder.
Clearly every element of the quotient ring Q[x]I(X2 - 2) can be
written as'a + bx, where x is the square root of 2, and where a and b
are rational. Suppose there exists a positive integer n and rational
numbers aI, a2, , an and bI> b2 , , bn such that
n
-1 =
(aj
+ b x)2.
j
1=1
-1
= 2a;+22b;'
I-I
1=1
ALGEBRA
v-I
v-I
(a
+ bX)(c + dX) + r,
q == mn- 1 = (mn)n-~ =
mn
2: (n-
1 )2,
;=1
v-I,
v-I,
123
= 021 -
!(0'21)2
1 + 009527539875
+ t(0'09527539875)2 + !{0'09527539875)3,
x 2 =q
and find the greatest integer n such that n2 <; q. Put x = n + x', and
l/x'. Clearly, if x' = 0 then the square root is n and we are done.
If not then we have x > 1, and x satisfies the new quadratic equation
x=
(q - n 2 )x2
2nx = 1.
Now we may seek the greatest integer such that the left-hand side is
less than or equal to 1; call this integer ii, and write
x = ii + lj2 X
124
ALGEBRA
n, n, ...).
2
1/(n
Ij2n), ...)
(n, n + l/n, n
These fractions approximate the desired square root. As an example,
let us compute Y3.
First write x 2 = 3. Since 12 = 1 < 3 but 22 = 4 > 3, we take n = 1.
Now (1
l/y)2 = 3 gives 2y(y - 1) = 1.
Since 2.1(1 - 1) = 0 < 1 and 2.2(2 - 1) = 4 > 1, we put n = 1
and write y = 1
l/z. This gives z(z - 2) = 2 and 2fi = 2.
Putting z = 2 + l/a, we get 2a(a - 1) = 1. It follows that y = a,
and
n.
fi = 3
"'p+q -
..
"'p
or
lit.
125
y = 1 + 1/(2 + l/y).
Taking y = 1 as a beginning, we get successively y = It, y = 114}>
Y = IlL ... , and the corresponding values of x are x = Ii, IH,
Hi, .... Note that
(1t~)2
= 3~.
ALGEBRA
127
among certain classes of pedagogues and is used in school textbooks. The basic meaning of the word is 'deaf', but it may mean
irrational or unresponsive. Some early etymologists derived the word
from 'sordid', probably incorrectly, because those whose ears are
dirty or sordid are unable to hear clearly. A surd is defined as
(1) any irrational solution of an equation
x 2 =q
has no rational solution. This differs in only two respects from the
definition (I): we m).lst replace 2 by n, where n is an integer at least 2;
128
ALGEBRA
and we must call x, not q, the surd. This use of the word 'square' to
mean 'square root' derives from geometry.
Once it became thoroughly well known that surds were quite surd,
and that it was absurd to keep on asking them, 'Who are you?
Please answer in the form ofthe quotient of two integers (the second
being non-zero),' people cast about for other methods of obtaining
information. Certain surds, it was found, would respond if subjecteJ
to a very tiresome, long-drawn-out process requiring lots of strong
light and the use of (1) a sharp pointed stick; (2) a pair of sharp
pointed sticks joined at the blunt ends and capable of being set at any
desired degree of opening at the angle thus formed; and (3) a stiff,
straight rod of suitable length. Numbers which became more compliant under this mode of investigation were known as constructible
numbers. All this occurred in an age of the world when people were
far more cruel than they are now. In obtaining information of this
type, it was not thought to be particularly relentless or cruel to use
such tools, or to stretch the number' out along a line segment and
so possibly to put it painfully out of shape.
It would perhaps not have been surprising, considering the lengths
to which people were prepared to go in representing surds geometrically, or constructing them, as it was quaintly termed, if all the
surds had given way. But there were surds too obstinate to accept
such treatment. Not only would these surds not speak up and say
who they were, they would not even lie down meekly on a line segment with their feet (so to speak) up in the air. These brave numbers
won the grudging admiration of even the ruthless investigators themselves for their unflinchingly irrational behaviour under the most
brutal methods of the police state, which included bisection, indefinite extension, rotation, translation, cutting by lines and circlesbut the reader must be spared the full force of this infamy. Suffice it
to say that some of those that withstood such treatment became
known as surds of the third degree. In the curious parlance of that
abominable era, they were inconstructihle.
e
129
y=x'V'
130
ALGEBRA
kit with the other supplies when young children first set out in
geometry.
Objection 3. It is easy to construct the cube root of a given number,
which is a surd of the third degree. Voila:
Here OA is the given length I; it is also the cube root of that length,
since 1. I . 1 = 1. But since 1 is rational, this is not a surd.
131
ax 3 + bx 2 + ex + d
unless one of the roots is rational. Thus no length that can be constructed by the methods of ruler-and-compass geometry can ever be
a solution of an equation
ax 3 + bx 2 + ex + d = 0,
where a =F 0 and where a, b, e, d are rational numbers; i.e., quotients
of integers.
In what ways is it possible to write the number 3 as the sum of a
finite series of positive integers? The following ways are certainly
possible ones:
3=3
3=2+1
3=1+1+1
If one requires further that the sequence be non-increasing, then it
can be shown that these possibilities are the only ones (this condition implies, for example, the exclusion of '3 = 1 + 2', since 2 is
greater than 1 and that makes this an increasing series). Essentially
all that is required is the inequality
0< 1 < 2 < 3,
together with the fact that no integer lies strictly between two successive members of this inequality.
From the fact just mentioned, it is possible to show that
ax 3 + bx2 + ex + d
must satisfy one of the following conditions: either
(i) ax 3 + bx 2 + ex + d cannot be factored; i.e. cannot be
written as the product of polynomials oflower degree having rational
coefficients; or
(ii) this polynomial can be factored, and one of the factors is
linear; i.e.,
ax 3 + bx2 + ex + d = a(x + t)(x 2 + ux + v)
or
= a(x + r)(x + s)(x + t);
again, the coefficients are rational. This is clear because if the
factorisation is
132
ALGEBRA
;=1
2: deg(ft) = 3,
then
j=1
Q[x]
of polynomials with rational coefficients in an indeterminate x is a
principal ideal domain, there exist polynomials a(x), b(x) such that
I
= a(x)f(x) +,b(x)p(x);
Q[x]/(f(x))
is a field containing Q as a subfield. If Q(l) is the smallest subfield of
Fthat contains both Q and (l, where (l is a root off(x) in some extension F of the rationals, then (f(x)) is in the kernel of
Q[x]
ax3 + bX2 + ex + d = 0,
and suppose the roots are Xl> X2, X3, so that
ax3 + bX2 + ex + d = a(x - Xl)(X - X2)(X - X3)'
If
0'1 = Xl + X2 + X3,
0'2 = XIX2 + X2X3 + X3 Xl,
0'3 = XIX2 X3
are the elementary symmetric f;unctions, then writing
f(z) = Xl + X2Z + X3Z2
we get
3Xl = f(l) + f(ro) + f(ro 2),
where
(fro)3 + f(ro 2)3 = 20't - 9(0'10'2 - 30'3),
f(ro)f(ro 2 ) = <1~ - 3<12'
Hence a root is
,.!..{-b+[-2b3+9abc-27a2d+3y(-3a 2b2c2+ 81a 4d2-54a 3bcd+
3a
+ 12a2b3d+ 12a 3c3)]1/3 .2-1/3+[-2b3+9abc-27a2d-3y(-3a2b2c2+81a4d2-54a3bcd+
ALGEBRA
EXAMPLE. A man wishes to build a belfry, which shall be square at
the base, and which shall be three dekacubits higher than it is wide.
The desired volume of the belfry is four cubic dekacubits. Please give
the required measurements.
Solution. Let x be the height of the belfry in dekacubits. Then the
width and thickness at the base are both (x - 3). The equation is
thus
x - 3){x - 3)x
4,
or
x3
6x 2
+ 9x -
O.
x = H6 + [432 - 486
= 1 cubic centicubit
1 cubic decicubit
1 cubic cubit
= 1 cubic dekacubit
= 1 cubic hectacubit
= 1 cubic kilocubit
= 1 cubic myriacubit.
=
=
135
136
ALGEBRA
4. Pain de maison
137
assistant came out to ask her to leave (her immense form had been
blocking most of the light trying to come into the shop through the
plate glass) she had a question. 'Excusez-moi. Zat olmost spherical
wan wiz minimal superficial airia, wat is he call l'
'Cottage loaf,' the young person had said. By means of her pocket
dictionary, Gasparde resolved the cryptic name:. bread of house, it
meant; a curious name. Probably because the shape of the loaf,
which had a little knob on top, could not be imitated and was a
speciality of this bakery. But it was the shape, all huddled together
on the inside with no outside surface to speak of, that interested
Gasparde. There was something about that that poor Cretain back
home in the village might find very interesting. Feeling her appetite
rise again at the thought of the serious business of the bakery at
home, Mme Mange hurried to the window of a tea-shop for the
only infallible remedy: the sight of Englishmen eating mashed
potatoes, tinned spaghetti and baked beans on toast. Hunger
vanished immediately, and soon the widow's mind returned to her
favourite pursuit on holiday-discovering new twists in the unfathomable ways of the islanders.
That winter, she recalled her moment of enlightenment for Cretain.
'You know, it would solve all your problems; only, you must not
make it like two balls smashed together. It is more like a chignon.'
' - I could never, never compute the volume of a chignon; even
the sphere would introduce a difficulty, because the number n on
my slide-rule is out by several thousandths.' When they spoke to
each other, Cretain and Gasparde always began the first sentence
with a long dash, as everyone does who speaks good conversational
French. It i:, the first indispensable rule; whoever ignores it is exposed
as a conversational barbarian before he has uttered a word.
' - No, no, Cretain. Listen to me, I am telling you. You will not
make them like that. Do you even make the ordinary loaves like the
other bakers ? Yours are pure rectangular parallelepipeds. You will
make them cubes, of course.'
' - What an idea! The only baker in France to make a cubical
loaf. You cannot imagine the joy of it! And the mathematical implications ... Now I am glad that I could never find you a husband;
you can never know how you have eased my mind. Because of
course ... '
138
ALGEBRA
' - There is always at least one real root. It does not depend on
the supply of dough, on the orders ... '
' - Wait, Gasparde. What if no-one orders the variable cube? I
will be the laughing stock of the village-there would then be a
quadratic equation, not a cubic.'
' - Do you think I have not thought of it? Do you still think, my
brother, that because I am a fat old woman I am stupid? Have I not
been thinking of it since the autumn? I promise always to eat the
large cube. I will place an order, I myself. Only because I am your
sister-who else would eat a huge lump of uncooked dough every
day? And you are wrong about being the only baker of cubes. That
you are already; only they are the small cubes with edge of length I.
There are others besides you who bake by the quadratic equation.
But you will bake by the cubic equation; that will be your unique
distinction !'
Immediately, M. Boulangiaire reached for a pencil that adhered
to his left ear, and wrote on the surface of the table:
ax 3 + bx2 + Ix + c = p,
where the coefficients are a for the Anglo-Saxon loaves required,
b for the fiat, square loaves preferred by the Goths (M. Boulangiaire
always called them Boches), I for the ordinary French loaves, c for
the little cubic loaves whose side was constant, and p for the total
amount of dough for which there was provision. Yes, it was going
to be a grand game. The villagers would not know what to make
of it. To que~tions about the new loaf, he would only reply, 'It is
special-you would not like it.'
QUESTION 24. Whether the cubic equation will always provide a real
root, and in fact a positive one, so that the baker can begin to bake?
the supply p always provides for more of the little buns of unit side
than the requirement c, since the villagers are never that keen to have
them. Hence if f is the polynomial function whose value at x is the
left-hand side of the equation,
f(O) <p
and
lim f(x) =
00.
x~oo
f(O)
and hence there exists a real number ~ such that 0 < ~ < N and such
that fW = p. This is then a positive root.
Reply to Objection 1. This solution of the problem has already
occurred to M. Boulangiaire, but has been rejected by him for the
very good reason that it requires the Intermediate Value Theorem,
of which he was not given a rigorous proof at the Ecole Paranormale.
We, of course, know of a rigorous proof ofthe Intermediate Value
Theorem, but it is one that uses the idea of the existence of a universally attracting object in the category of archimedean fields, and the
fact that such a universally attracting object must necessarily contain
the least upper bound, or supremum, of a set of numbers that is not
empty and that possesses an upper bound. Not only would M.
Boulangiaire be unable at his present age to assimilate all the necessary concepts to follow a proof, but he would be justifiably annoyed
at the introduction of analytical concepts in order to solve an
algebraic problem. 'You are employing a blast furnace in order to
toast marshmallows,' he would say in his shrewdly practical way.
Objection 2. Replacing any root ot by its complex conjugate Ci.,
we get
afi. 3
so that fi. is also a root. Hence the roots occur in conjugate pairs,
and since 3 is an odd number and there are three roots in all, one of
them must be equal to its complex conjugate and hence real.
Reply to Objection 2. In order to do the problem this way, it is
necessary to construct the complex number field, or some other field
140
ALGEBRA
containing all the roots of the equation, and possessing an alternating automorphi&m k ~ Tc; i.e., one such that k= k; the alternation must have the property that the subfield it leaves invariant is a
real field. The study of automorphisms of extension fields and the
subfield that they leave invariant is Galois theory, and the study of
the complex numbers is analysis; hence, these methods are too highpowered.
I ANSWER THAT there exists a real root of the cubic equation under
consideration, and that it is positive. This means that the baker will
always be capable of baking bread in such a way as to solve the
equation and just use up his dough-although he will have to
approximate and so may be a little bit out, the error and hence the
amount of dough left over or not available for finishing the last loaf
can be made as small as desired. Unfortunately, he will not in general
be able to construct x, the length of the French loaf and the edge of
the Gothic and Anglo-Saxon loaves, by ruler and compasses as he
used to do with the old method. When he had only a quadratic
equation to solve, it was possible to obtain the required dimension by
ruler-and-compass construction, and the baker greatly enjoyed the
process. This recreation will now have to be abandoned. A number
of good methods nevertheless exist by which the approximation can
be refined within acceptable bakery tolerances.
The point is to have a system of numbers in which it is possible to
do addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division, in which it is
possible to say whether a number is positive or negative in a way
consistent with the arithmetic of the system of numbers; the system
must be generous enough to include a positive number that corresponds to the desired dimension x, where x is the solution of the
bread equation given by the orders of the various customers. That
will all be the case if there is a real extension field of the field of
rational numbers containing a root of the equation.
If the equation is reducible, this is obvious. Taking g(X) to be
aX3
+ bX2 + IX + c -
p,
-1
L PI(X)2 + k(X)g(X),
i=1
where of course the Pi (X) have degree less than 3. Since k(X) therefore necessarily has degree 1, or is the zero polynomial, there exists
a rational number q such that k(q) = O. Hence, -1 is the sum of
squares of a finite sequence of rational numbers. This is impossible,
and hence a real root exists.
The question remains whether any of the roots is positive. This
is clear if all roots lie in a real field, since their product is (p - c)/a,
which is a positive rational. Otherwise, the polynomial is reducible,
so that
x = 1 l/y,
and on substitution we find
)'3 _ 3y2 - 3y - 1 = O.
The left-hand side changes sign between 3 and 4, which leads to
y
Similarly we get z
+ l/z.
~2 = 1
the computation taken thus far gives 29/23, the cube of which is
2 1 As67'
142
ALGEBRA
143
where
n
X=XX/.
i=l
Hence, there can be no Rule of Two since 2 is even, and there can be
no Rule of One since n = 0 gives a Cartesian product over an empty
set of indices (from 1 to 0), so that X is a singleton {x}. Necessarily
the given term in the proposition is Ia(x), and this is just what we are
required to find-hardly an arduous task requiring a special rule for
its accomplishment.
In the case of John and the expansible-contractible ladies, it is
clearly presupposed that once we know how John reacts to a little
thing of 5 feet we can say just how a 10-foot version of the same
delicious morsel will hit him. Now various men react to different
women in various ways. For some, the thrill function reaches its
maximum value at 5 feet 2 inches. Clearly, what we must know from
144
ALGEBRA
1t
a SIn 10 ,
where a is the parameter. We easily determine in the present case that
for John the parameter a takes the value 100; hence it is easily computed that he gets exactly no thrills from taking out a 10-foot ladyfriend.
6. Polynomials
In treating problems related to the Rule of Three, it is often assumed
for simplicity that the functions Ia in the problem are all of the form
Ia(Xl> X2, , xn) = axtlx~' ... x kn ,
where the k t are integers, and where A, Xl> X 2 , , Xn are all the
same field. If we restrict this further to the case where the k t are
natural numbers, we reach a kind of function closely related to the
polynomial. Polynomials are sometimes divided into monomials (properly spoken, these should be mononomials), binomials, trinomials,
.... There seems to be no special name for polynomials that have no
terms at all, but otherwise these are just fancy ways of incorporating
into the name exactly the number of terms that exist in the polynomial. Of these, only the first type, the monomial, deserves separate
study. Hence we begin the study of polynomials with that of mononomials, or what might almost be called terms.
145
An example of a monomial is
yAaBbCcDdEeFf ... zz,
where y is likely to be an element of a ring, and where the exponents
a, b, c, ... , z are natural numbers. The letters A, B, C, ... , Z are
called letters or indeterminates. It can easIly be shown that the
monomial just mentioned is a monomial in (at least) 26 letters; in
order to simplify slightly the questions which arise, we shall begin by
considering monomials in just one letter.
An example of a monomial in just one letter is aX. From this
monomial we can make a function, in a way which will be more fully
described below. If we assume that the thrill function with parameter
is obtained from this monomial, rather than from the function sin,
then we shall be able to compute that if John gets 100 thrills from
dancing with a lady 5 feet tall, then
100 = a.5,
so that a = 20. This shows that if John dances with a lady 10 feet
tall then he gets 200 thrills. (This approach is called linearising the
problem, and shows one of the many charming applications of this
special kind of problem.)
Another kind of monomial is xa. Using this monomial we produce
a parametrically indexed family of functions, and the same problem
as before-ifthe reader will forgive the intrusion of one more worked
example of the Rule of Three-can again be worked on the hypothesis that the thrill reaction of a man dancing with a lady depends on
the height of the lady according to the law
h~ha,
za-2
146
= 0, 1,2, or 3,
ALGEBRA
has as its only rational roots a subset of {-I, I}. Why can the problem not be done? There are two explanations: one, that the word
'lady' no longer has a definite meaning. In 1840, a self-respecting
servant girl could say, 'Why, if I were a lady, I should be delighted
to be the object of Captain Ainstruther's affectionate interest: Then,
it was a matter of fact whether a woman was a lady or not. At
present, many women who are certainly not ladies are most insulted
if they are called women, and speakers of the language are divided
between those who call all women ladies, and those who call no
women ladies. Now in a mathematical exercise, it is of crucial importance that all the words used have a definite, clearly defined meaning.
It is no good applying mathematics to a mixture of vague impressions, compounded of the notions 'lady', 'gentleman', 'well-proportioned', etc. All the concepts must rest on a firm logical basis, as
ball:
{x E R3 : Ixl <
I}
-one may gather that it is the 3-ball from the fact that the people
who are going to the ball are in a problem illustrating the Rule of
Three, but if it were some other odd number, one would simply take
the ball in the Euclidean space of the corresponding number of
dimensions. That is one reason why we cannot expect very startling
success in determining the thrillage. The second reason is that in this
case the image of 5 under X -+ yA is not a surjection A -+ Y, and
that this is just as necessary as that the image be an injection.
QUESTION
X'" +n ;
ALGEBRA
QUESTION
AB?
149
thing. If one is set the problem: Prove that Oberon is the King ofthe
Fairies, it is not surprising that there is some work to do-one may
have to find a fairy and say, 'Take me to your leader!' But on being
asked to prove that Oberon is Oberon, one reacts differently. Since
it is not clear how to proceed, even though the task hardly promises
to be one of extreme difficulty, one may feel inclined to bite one's
nails or to call for the police. It is not unnatural to react in this way.
The present case is in fact slightly deceptive. The conventions of
notation have produced two expressions that were intended to say
different things, and that were arrived at by different roads; and by
pure chance the two expressions have the same form. It is rather like
the two English sentences
'Fruit flies like a banana.'
and
'Fruit flies like a banana.'
The first of these sentences means that certain small flies, some of
which belong to the species Drosophila, and all of which feed on
fruit when they are in the larval,stage, if they can get it, have among
the fruits for which they feel a preferential inclination a yellow,
elongated fruit of the genus and species Musa paradisiaca sapientum.
In other words, those fruit flies really go for a banana. The second of
the two sentences means something quite different; to wit, that
vegetable produce succeeding the flower passes through the air in a
manner resembling that in which a banana would pass through the
air. The first sentence could be tested as to veracity by presenting
some fruit flies with various kinds of food: a measuring tape, some
beefsteak tartare-the list can vary without restriction, except that
it must contain a banana. That way, you could tell if fruit flies like a
banana. To test the second proposition, one might use a wind tunnel,
or a large catapult, in order to study the aerobatic properties of
mangoes, lichees, pears, and (just possibly) aubergines and horsechestnuts, and to compare these with the aerobatic properties of a
banana. 'Fruit flies like a banana' is a proposition in entomological
gastronomy, whereas 'Fruit flies like a banana' is a proposition in
horticultural aerobatics. These two subjects, while they are important
intellectual disciplines demanding our utmost respect, are still in
their infancy, and unfortunately we cannot safely rely on them for
more than tentative, if hopeful, guesses as to whether fruit flies do
150
ALGEBRA
like a banana, or as to whether fruit does fly like a banana. The important point is that the two fields have as yet no common ground;
at present, no reputable interdisciplinary work has been done in
both at once; no joint degree has been taken in entomological
gastronomy as applied to horticultural aerobatics; no lecture entitled 'Fruit flight and the diet of Drosophila: bananism versus
pomegranitry' has been read. There is no connection between the
two sentences. If we are to prove that AB, understood in one sense,
is the same as AB, understood in a quite different sense, we shall not
do it just by remarking that they look the same.
I ANSWER THAT without doubt AB = AB. Consider the three
monomials involved in the equation: A, B, and AB. These are
monomials in a certain set of letters S, where S certainly contains A
and B-considered as letters, not as monomials-and where. S may
possibly contain any further finite set of letters-say, all Russian
minuscules that normally precede the letter 'e' in a native Russian
common noun, all Hebrew letters that take daghesh forte but not
daghesh lene, and the Devanagari voiced aspirates together with
Latin majuscules not congruent to 3 modulo 4.
Now as a monomial,
A:Af-+l
A:Af-+
B:Af-+
AB: A f-+
we get that
0
1
V A (A) + B(A) =
1.ES
o
o
o
AB(A).
among the most important weapons in the arsenal of the mathematicians, so that familiarity and skill in the handling of polynomial
manipulations is absolutely essential for passing examinations. The
most important skill of all, the sine qua non of the would-be algebraist, is the ability to recognise a polynomial on sight. This is not
as simple as it sounds. Recognising polynomials on sight can be done
on various levels. At a rather lowish level, one may be shown this:
ao
152
ALGEBRA
V rep,) = ~
p(u)q(J..).
L.t
pEN s
,,},=p
153
Polynomial identities
One of the most basic identities for practical purposes in connection
with computations is
(X -
Y)(X
+ Y) =
X2 -
y2.
h+j=m
i+k=n,
we See that the product of the two polynomials has degree 2; that is,
their product is a function that must take the value 0 at xm yn
except in case m + n = 2. This is because m + n = (h + j) +
(i + k) = (h + i) + (j + k) = 2 whenever even one term in the convolution sum is non-zero. Hence we know that the product takes the
form
aX2
+ bXY + cy2,
154
ALGEBRA
then (h, i,j, k) must differ from (1,0, 1,0) by an element of the
kernel of the homomorphism Z4 ~ Z4 determined by the matrix;
hence is of the form
(1 + w, -W, 1 - w, +w),
where W is an integer. Since it is further required that h, i,j, k be
natural numbers, we must necessarily have
w=O.
Hence the coefficient of X 2 is the product of the coefficient of X in
(X - Y) and the coefficient of X in (X + y), or 1.1, giving
a=1.
In a similar way, if Xh yi and X J yk are to make a contribution to the
coefficient b of X y, then we must have
(h, i,j, k) = (1 + w, -W, -W, 1 + w).
There are seen to be two solutions in naturals, namely (1, 0, 0, 1) and
(0, 1, 1, 0), and we get b = O. Similarly c = -1 and we are done.
Note that the above product X 2 - y2 becomes X2 + y2 over
rings of characteristic 2, where -1 = 1.
An exactly similar method may be used to show that many other
familiar polynomial identities hold. Alternatively, of course, one
may verify that the monoid algebra o[S] satisfies the ring axioms;
i.e., one may verify that the convolution product is associative:
tH:=,Jl. ,=xA
"'=V
AP='
and that the 'constant polynomial' taking the value 1 on the neutral
monomial and taking the value 0 elsewhere is neutral for convolution. Distributivity over addition must also be verified.
155
and call them parentheses. Doubtless this is but one instance of the
fact that, broadly speaking, the people abroad speak broadly.
Americans, especially speak so broadly they speak expansively; they
expand the word 'lift', a box for hauling people up and down in, into
'elevator', and they have applied the same principle to the word
'bracket'. This habit is known as American largesse.
The division of brackets is twofold. First, they are divided into
species, which are the round, the square, and the curly. Secondly, each
species is itself divided into two sexes, the left-hand (or sinister) and
the right-hand (or dexter). For example, (is a left-hand bracket, and)
is a right-hand one.
A parenthesis on the sex life of brackets
Human beings live in a very different world from that inhabited by
brackets. Our world (the author is himself a human being) is a threedimensional one; that is, disregarding time and speaking locally, a
human being who refrains from extended space travel spends most
of his time in a homeomorph of R3. In a similar sense, we may call a
bracket a two-dimensionalite; he (or she) lives in R2. Just as we can
hardly imagine the life of a being in four-space, so can brackets only
dimly guess at us. A thoughtful bracket could certainly form the
abstract idea of the space we live in. An imaginative bracket could
perhaps people such a figmentary space with putative beings. A lucky
bracket might guess something about the division of our race into
sexes, and the shapes of our bodies. But surely no being so alien to
us could ever suppose our complex customs of marriage and courtship to be such as they are. Brackets, on those rare occasions when
they think of us at all, must picture us as some kind of huge, curly
bracket.
But are we in a better state with regard to our little fellow creatures?
Most of us see them often enough; how often do we try to think
what life is really like for them? Yet the rules of their game, the system sanctioned by nature and society by which they regulate their
lives, is perhaps as complex for brackets as our own system is for us.
One misconception must be scotched at the start. Just because the
left- and the right-hand brackets look rather alike, people sometimes
think that no polarity exists between them. This is not true, as we shall
see. An especially dangerous idea is that a left bracket can, by leaping
156
ALGEBRA
157
t See p. 61.
158
ALGEBRA
or from ab)c(deefmake
Thus the two are made one, and the he-bracket may say to his shebracket, 'Borne of my borne, and fleche of my fleche!' It is possible
for us to do the thing; but is it wise? For what we have joined can no
longer be put asunder. What is written, is written, like the laws of
the Medes and the Persians. And it may begin to pall on the brackets.
Too much of a good thing may well be worse than none at all. Had
we not better leave well enough alone? For after all is said and done,
human knowledge of the love life of brackets is meagre.
The most important use of brackets is to show the order in which
operations must be performed. Thus, the above may indicate
F(F( F(a, b), F( F(c, F(d, e, e,f).
The function F is suppressed as being too obvious for mention, and
the simpler form involving only brackets results. There is a different
approach which is used in Poland sometimes, whereby instead of
suppressing the functions one suppresses the brackets; for example,
one writes
FFFabFFcFdeef.
This way of writing things is said to be easy for machines to read.
One may also replace brackets by a numeral or mark representing the
depth of the deepest bracket at the point, as
ab///c/de//e////f.
However we choose to indicate the order of operations, we must
make it clear that one must perform either ab or de first, and that the
last step is the one that uses f.
It is clear that when brackets are used in this way, certain rules
must be obeyed if the result is to make sense. If the rules are n.ot
followed a very unhappy situation develops in which brackets are
159
not married, or are not sure to whom they are married. A sensitive
reader soon notices when this has happened-we do not know quite
how; perhaps it is because of a kind of thought transfer from bracket
to man. For example, in writing
(ab)c)cl)((ef)
the author has started some very sad brackets on the road of life.
In ((ef) we have, on the left, a sort of eternal best man who can never
be married and who is doomed to be part of an eternal triangle,
hanging about on the outskirts of the married couple (ef) . It cannot
be good for any of them, although) may be flattered by the extra
attention she gets. There are other heartrending situations present in
this example, and the author would never have created this woeful
little microcosm but for his desire to warn others not to make the
same mistake.
If we are to avoid such errors, we need a rule explaining when expressions obey the social rules so necessary for the smooth functioning
of domestic life among the brackets, and when the expressions
introduce friction into the well-lubricated workings of the bracket
household. We need to have a procedure for writing bracketed
expressions that will produce all the right expressions, and none of
the wrong ones. Since a bracketed expression can be obtained from
two smaller expressions by writing one down after the other, and then
surrounding the whole mess by a pair of brackets, we may write
S
+ (SS),
160
ALGEBRA
S=a+SS,
and if S
ko
+ k1a + k
(q/)
* (q/) = t -
a,
which gives us
k _ 2(2i - 3)!
/ - .l)7(
- l..,
~ I
by the binomial theorem. Thus there are 429 ways of inserting brackets
in an expression of length 8: for instance, one way of inserting
brackets in abcdefgh is
(a(b(c(d(e(f(gh),
and there are 428 other ways.
161
4
TOPOLOGY AND GEOMETRY
1. Into the interior
(iv) (A () Bt
AO () BO;
= a whenever
Va/x = a/.
iEf
We write a
from some point onwards. In other words, it is impossible to approach Q along a sequence except by being at Q almost from the
start. But that would be cheating. Hence, sequences are inadequate
for a proper stalking exercise in this kind of country, and no experienced ordinal-hunter would use them.
Reply to Objection 1. It is true that nets are glorified sequences,
and that sequences are woefully insufficient in many spaces. One
weeps to think how hard it would be to approach one's objective if
there were nothing better than sequences to use. It would be like
lion-hunting Masai style, with spear and leather shield. Fortunately,
weapons have been devised that make lion-hunting as easy as picking
up a sleeping pussy cat; they are, in essence, merely glorified spears.
The projectile is thrown more forcefully and accurately, and from
a greater distance. Similarly, nets can do what sequences cannot,
despite the fact that they possess the same basic principle of design.
166
any other substance, when she passes through a filter she comes out
in a refined state; whereas when a philtre passes through her the
probable effect on her behaviour is not likely to be one that could
be described in terms of greater refinement.
I ANSWER THAT approaching points in a topological space along a
net is indeed perfectly possible.
Sometimes it is even possible to approach a point along a sequence.
We all know about the thirsty frog who wished to jump down the
well, but found that his strength was fast failing him. The well was
two feet away. His first jump took him one foot, but his second jump
carried him only six inches. Indeed, he found that after each jump,
he had only enough power left to jump half as far. Thus the total
distance he had jumped after n jumps was
2 - 1/2n-
feet.
QUESTION
169
S1 --+ [0, 1]
exists sending
a1 f-+
a2
C1 f-+
1
1
C2 f-+
f-+
and taking values that depend linearly on arc length over any interval
not containing any of these four points. (By an interval on S1 we
mean a proper connected subset containing more than one point.)
This fact is not difficult to get, and can be obtained by noting that
S1 is [0, 1] with 0 and 1 identified. It may be taken as a fact of
geography that by the composition of
2. The insides
People often talk as if they had insides. When a man is feeling queasy,
uneasy, under the weather, when he suffers from neuritis or neuralgia,
he may say mournfully, 'Oh! There is something the matter with my
inwards; I am not quite right inside; I am the victim of intestine
strife.' Wh;tt rubbish! How does he know that he has any insides?
Just because human beings ordinarily possess livers, guts, gallbladders, and other such slimy organs, does not go any distance
toward proving that these things are inside the human beings. In
many fairy stories, people's insides are represented as being outside
the people. A little boy may be entrusted with the care and keeping
of his mother's heart, and may carry it about with him. How do we
know that this is merely an extraordinary fancy? Why do we so
easily suppose that it cannot happen to us? Perhaps everyone's
heart is outside him. Perhaps my heart is outside me, and my fingers
171
and eyes, the paper I am writing on, the reader and the book he is
reading are all inside me. Or perhaps the book and I are inside the
reader, 'and his stomach is outside him. Who can tell?
But even worse, why do we suppose that there is a distinction of
the world into two parts, one outside us and one inside? Ah, the
reader may say, now there you go too far. I am willing to entertain
the ridiculous notion that my insides are really outside me, and my
outsides are inside me. But now you ask me to think that there is no
difference between the inside and the outside; that my stomach and
the book I am reading are both on the same side, the only side;
that there are not two sides but one side. It is too much. I cannot
imagine it.
Yet, that is the situation we are faced with. It is not asserted that a
human being has not got an inside and an outside; all that is asserted
is that there is a problem. And it.is a topological problem. Now a
human being is topologically a difficult object to study. He is always
moving about; that is, he is constantly changing shape. A man with
his fingers in his ears has two, more handles than a man standing
with arms and legs outstretched. If the alimentary passage is not
blocked, and if we make certain other simplifying assumptions, we
may consider the man to be composed of the skin ~d the lining of
the oesophagus, stomach, and intestines. It must be emphasised that
in this view, the bones, muscles, brains, etc. are not part of the man
thus considered. He is a surface; and it would help our deliberations
if he would be so kind as to keep open his mouth and his anus. The
breezes must pass freely through the tunnel. Then a man is a torus;
to be exact, he is a two-torus T2 = S1 X S1. He is the product of two
circles. More than that, he is a torus in three-space R3. Has he got an
inside and an outside? To put it another way, if we consider all the
rest of the universe besides the m.an, which consists of the guts, heart,
liver, brain, blood, etc. ofthe man together with the Eiffel Tower, the
Big Dipper or Ursa Major, Grant's tomb, and whatever else exists
besides the man himself-if we consider all that, is there a sensible
way of dividing it into two portions that shall be separated from one
another by the man? Is there a division of the waters under the firmament from the waters above the firmament? Is the liver inside the
man and the Eiffel Tower outside----:or vice versa? Later we shall
return to this question. Before we go on to simplify the problem
172
QUESTION
(a)
(b)
Figure 5
173
outside
Figure 6
(a)
(b)
Figure 7
P 1-+ lOP I
is continuous. Since
the mapping
.J:
defined by
r
l+r
TI-+--
J(1) =
176
we saw, it is not enough in the case of the sphere to show that there
are two pieces, or components, because even so one is unable to
distinguish which of the pieces is the inside and which is the outside.
Can we do so in the present case ?
Consider the two pieces. The piece containing 0 (the centre of the
circle) will be shown to be the inside, and the other piece will be
shown to be the outside. Thus, among other things we shall learn
that the centre of the circle is inside the circle. Write Co for the component of the plane (with the circle taken out) that contains 0, and
Co for the union of this set with the circle itself. Then it is to be
proved that Co consists of all the points either inside the circle or on
the circle: in any case, it is known that
Co
I}.
I I
[0, 1] ~ Co
Coo c R2
= U{Bn(O): neNo},
177
designate all the points of the plane very far from the centre as points
inside? In other words, why is the conventional terminology not
the one shown in Figure 8? There appears to be no satisfactory
Figure 8
178
(a)
(b)
pa~sage is open and the other closed. It is usually difficult to distinguish one of these cases from the other, especially in political
oratory; the resulting surface is in both of these cases topologically
the same. Technically, it is an identification space of a torus. Only
one of the possible ways of including such a topological space in R3
is capable of being human; the other is the skin of a ring sausage
(Figure 10). Neither the ring sausage nor the orator is a manifold,
and the difficulties of this case force us to ignore it.)
179
(a)
(b)
The first essential type of man is the Quiet Man. His motto:
Silence is Golden. He is not given to flatulence or loquaciousness.
His sign is the Sun. The second essential type of man is the Loud
Man. His motto: Speech is Silver. He is flatulent, loquacious, and
given to overeating. He thinks and acts little, but speaks much. His
sign is Saturn, the planet with rings. Most men oscillate between
these two types.
Loud Men, abstractly, are capable of much more interesting combinations than Quiet Men. They may be linked together in chains. A
simple configuration of this type is shown in Figure 11.
Because of the theoretical possibility of this configuration, biologists have searched assiduously for an example. Their quest has been
fruitless, so far as authenticated records show. Loud Men, as such,
exist in abundance; linked Loud Men appear to be very rare. Why
180
(a)
181
QUESTION 30. Whether two men who customarily maintain the alimentary tract in an open and ventilated state, by never shutting the mouth
or anus (hereafter called Loud Men), can become linked like the
links of a chain-so that each man passes down the oesophagus of the
182
After
Before
Figure 13. HYPothetical linking of Loud Man.
183
MATHEMATICS'MADE DIFFICULT
On.
184
c :>
&
(::::::) Endoderm
Mesoderm
Figure 14. Transformation of toroidal Loud Man.
185
3. Geometry
Civilised man lives close by the brink of the water. To the great
civilisations that developed along the banks of the great rivers-the
Indus, the Euphrates, the Cam-can be traced much of that artistic
and scientific heritage which adorns modem life. The earliest
recorded discovery of a useful art occurred in Eden, near the head
of the Euphrates. This was the discovery of both nakedness and its
complementary opposite, clothes; both of which arts remain important industries in the great cities of today. The art of falling was
discovered by a river-valley man, Isaac Newton, although the actual
discovery took place at Grantham, Lincolnshire, and not at Cambridge (the centre of the great Cam civilisation). This event, known
as the Fall of the Apple, occurred much later than the other, the
Fall of Man. Before either of them occurred the Fall of Lucifer,
which was not an art, though it became the subject-matter of several
great works of art. From the Fall of the Apple was developed the
great art of Potential Theory.
In the valley of the Indus a great civilisation developed, to which
we owe Sanskrit and the Indo-European langnage. The most important word in this langnage is [ox, or, if you prefer, Lakshmi. She is
the goddess of smoked salmon and bagels. A bagel is a torus, and
has been encountered already in the chapter on topology. It is eaten
with lox, and is a topological group R2jZ2. Along with lox, bagels,
and language came the great Aryan race; to them we certainly owe
the discovery of the square. It has long been unknown whether the
Aryans developed the torus, or bagel, from the square, or vice versa.
Which came first? Square enthusiasts point to the shape of the
Aryan head as an indication that they must have been forced at an
early date to contemplate this figure. At first they would have found
it natural to bake their bread in this shape; later, because the torus
is obtained by an identification of opposite edges of a square, it
naturally occurred to their rather simple, straightforward minds to
make bagels, or toroid bread as a kind of elegant variation. That is
how one segment of opinion reconstructs the story, which must
nevertheless in its more intimate details remain dark for us. It is
186
noteworthy that one branch of the Aryan race, the famous Aryan
heretics, persevered in making and eating exclusively square bread,
and eschewed bagels. (Bagels are hard to chew, but it is foolish to
eschew them). The Aryan race were also interested in the wheel,
which they called a wheel-wheel, whirr-whirr, a GLGL, a quirque/, or
a circle. It is possible that the wheel was developed from the bagel;
that when the early Aryans began to think about the bagel, they
realised that it was a compact topological group and began searching
for other compact topological groups, and that this search brought
them on the trail of the wheel, or circle. It cannot be overlooked that
others derive the bagel not from the square but from the circle.
When the Aryans heard of Tychonoff's theorem (the product of
compact spaces is compact) they applied it to the wheel, and got a
new compact group:
BAGEL
= WHEEL
X WHEEL.
SO much for the Indus Valley and the immense heritage we possess
as its successors.
The Yellow River civilisation gave us the I Ching, or index of
permutations, from which developed the symmetric group on n letters
and the non-conservation of parity, and was responsible for the
Chinese Remainder Theorem, space travel, dragons, Pekingese dogs,
and fortune cookies.
The Nile Valley has a civilisation so ancient that the name given
to the process of suspended animation discovered on the banks of
this river is mummification, and the subjects of it, who were provided
with picture-books of instructions and light entertainment against
their future reanimation, were designated as mummies. These names
make it absolutely certain that the Nile civilisation dates from before
the Fall of Man, when the distinction-between mummies and daddies
was discovered. Pyramids, another Egyptian invention, were principally a tourist attraction, like the Eiffel Tower. They were copied
in America, where they were used for heart transplant operations,
flower shows, and football games. Pyramids were also influential in
the history of Greek geometry. Among all the ideas of the Nilesiders
-mummies, men with bird's faces, cats with women's faces, the
feeding of non-mummies to crocodiles-only the pyramid is of
mathematical significance, and this only through the Greeks.
187
188
=/.
then the whole line has been swept out without encountering R,
and hence R does not exist. It follows that Q is between P and R.
Reply to Objection 3. The objection is stated in terms with a
pseudo-particle-dynamical flavour, but we need not insist on looking at the objection in this light; if we did, it would of course have
to be rejected as non-mathematical. The idea of a moving point is a
highly sophisticated one by the time it is given a mathematical
expression. The billiard-ball behaviour of Q when struck by P involves differential equations, and the points are even treated as
impermeable to one another. Worst of all, the objection assumes
without proof that a line has only two directions. Just what is the
justification for this bold assumption?
I ANSWER THAT it is the case that if three points on a line are distinct,
then one lies between the two others. The general idea of the proof
is very simple. Since P, Q, R (the three points) lie on a line, we may
draw arrows from P to Q, from Q to R, and from R to P. It is
necessary to show that either two of these arrows go to the right,
or two of them go to the left. Since the line is an affine space, there
exists a way of associating to each pair of points a vector or arrow:
to (A, B) we associate the vector AB. Since the line is by Euclid's
definition a one-dimensional affine space, the vectors in question
lie in a one-dimensional space-Le., module-over a field of characteristic O-i.e., characteristic <Xl-which possesses an archimedean
order. (It was the great Eureka who discovered that lines have got
to have an archimedean order. This was on one of the many occasions when Eureka was singing in the bath. Since he had very bad
pitch combined with good volume, Eureka's singing was always indistinguishable from his shouting.) We cannot be sure, and need not
worry about, just which archimedean ordered field F is being used,
but since it contains y'2, it cannot be the universally repelling archi~
medean ordered field Q, though it certainly contains Q. Since
PQ + QR + RP = PP = 0 by the axioms of affine spaces, and since
the vector space, being a one-dimensional free module over F, is
isomorphic as an abelian group to the abelian group structure of F,
the fact that none ofPQ, QR, RP is 0 enables us to conclude that by
the use of a suitable permutation (in the symmetric group on
{P, Q, R}) it can be arranged that two of PQ, QR, RP are positive
190
+ 1 = 0,
192
How then did the men of Ur measure their angles? Possibly they
knew that one can integrate
dt
y(1 - t 2 )
for 1 :> x:> -1, and that when this (obviously continuous monotonic) function is inverted, it is capable of providing material for a
homomorphism from the topological group of real numbers to the
(multiplicative) topological group of non-zero complex numbers
whose image is the circle. If so, the measurement of angles would
become a triviality for them. But there is no record of a theory of
divergent Riemann integrals among the Urmen, and perhaps they
did it via Taylor'S series.
The line, the circle, the angle-to these basic ideas of geometry
must be added a fourth.
Area of a rectangle
Almost everything is made in the shape of a rectangle. Two of the
most obvious examples are a book and a farmer's field. Why this
should be is difficult to say, but it is worthy of attention that the
farmer ploughs his field in furrows, and that the writer writes and the
reader reads the book in lines, which are very like furrows. The
author has never understood why books are not written even more
plough-fashion than they are. Why not write like this?
Oh, what are the zeros of zeta of s?
!ssefnoc ylurt I, uoy llet nac ydoboN
It would be so much easier to read-the eye would not travel back
Why is it that when a man has a rectangle, the first thing he does
with it is to calculate its area? Is it because he knows how to get
the right answer? That hardly seems likely.
c + I,
where of course I is the identity endomorphism of the vector space
195
R2. It is of course far from obvious that the area of a rectangle does
remain the same when it is moved, since not every measure on a
locally compact topological group is Haar measure. Clearly, one of
the tacit words in the question was Haar: the question asked about
the Haar area of a rectangle with sides Band H. (The words 'convex
hull', the reader will notice, have become tacit by now.)
If a rectangle is (the boundary of the union of the convex hulls of)
two other rectangles joined together, and if the two other rectangles
do not overlap (so that their convex hulls have disjoint interiors)
then its area is the sum of theirs. This is because the words 'finitely
additive' appear tacitly in the question.
It is obvious that if axes have been chosen through two adjacent
sides of the basic unit rectangle, the relation given holds so long as
the vertices of the rectangles have rational coordinates. The rather
mild assumption that countable additivity or continuity from above
at 0 holds for rectangles suffices to finish the job. It has not been
shown that rectangles really have areas; what has been shown is that
if they have areas which are as described in the question (mostly by
tacit expressions hidden therein) then the areas are as stated. The
question still remains: are areas of rectangles all nonsense?
196
EXERCISES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
EXERCISES
The reader is not required to do any of the exercises unless he cannot do them.
Starred exercises are considerably more difficult, and should always be attempted.
INTRODUCTION
1. Show that a finite subset of an arbitrary set E in a ring suffices to generate the
ideal generated by E if, and only if, the ring is Noetherian.
"'2. Show that 17 x 17 = 289. Generalise this result.
3. If the book is read backward (beginning at the last word of the last page), the
last thing read is the introduction (reversed, of course). Thus the introduction
acts as a sort of extraduction, and is suggested as a simple form of therapy, used
in this way, if the reader gets stuck. Read this exercise backward, and write an
extraduction from it.
4. Define (1) a tom category, (2) a pussy category, (3) a kittegory.
5. The set of levels at which a book can be read are ordered in the natural way.
If every chain of levels at which a book can be read has an upper bound (Le., a
level that explains or is higher than every level of the chain), then there is of
course a maximal level. Is there necessarily a highest level? What would
Aristotle say?
6. The tracks of a railway need to be the same distance apart all the way along;
otherwise, the axles of the carriages become elongated or buckled. Show that
this is possible, assuming for simplicity that trains have only one set of two
wheels, one wheel on one side of the track and one on the other; also, allow the
two rails to cross, or even to be the same rail. Show that a train of suitable gauge
can ride on a single rail in the shape of a British fifty-penny piece. What if the
train has several carriages, each with more than one axle? (The fifty-penny piece
has the shape of a regular heptagon, each side replaced by an arc of a circle
centred at the opposite vertex.)
199
CHAPTER 1: Arithmetic
1. You die, and find yourself at the foot of a mountain on an island. People are
marching round the shore of the island and counting in English; some of them
are reeling off rather greatish numbers, up in the billions; others sound as if they
had not been at it very long. You are instructed to join them, beginning at 'one'.
'Oh, goody!' you exclaim. Why?
2. You are asked your nationality and answer, 'British.' The clerk (an angel)
says, 'Hard cheese.' Explain this comment.
3. Establish a bijection from the set of fingers of the right hand to the set of
fingers of the left hand. Establish a bijection from the same set to the set of left
toes. Establish a bijection from the set of forefingers to the set of ears. You are
out. Why?
4. Explain why counting system (1), page 16, is used only in written form.
*5. Count in Siamese:
;o~
Siam
wa
1 1
goo~ta
6. 'And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to
speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes: Peradventure there shall
lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And
he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it. And he spake unto
him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall forty be found there. And he
said, I will not do it for forty's sake .. .' [16] How did Abraham have the nerve
to get into this conversation, and why was the Other Person so patient?
7. Prove Peano's axioms from Lawvere's. Prove the existence of a universal
pointed bijection
{O}
~Z~Z.
200
EXERCISES
O.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Chips
Plaice
Plaaice
Plaaaice
*(v) The shop has changed its policy. Customers now are allowed to order
finitely many portions of as many ages of plaice as they like-even infinitely
many kinds of plaice are allowed. The bill function still exists; show that some
kinds of fish are free. Show further that a thick enough accent rates free fish.
12. Show that if the number a is subtracted from the number b on two different
occasions, neither of which is the last Friday of the month when the succeeding
Monday occurs in the following month, the answers will both times be the same,
in the sense that if there is an answer on one of the occasions there will also be
one the other time.
13. Draw a noughts-and-crosses board, sometimes also referred to as a tic-tac-toe
board. Do not fill it in with noughts and crosses, sometimes called exes and ohs.
Instead, use curved arrows. By drawing more lines, make it a board for four-byfour (instead of three-by-three) noughts and crosses. Wave your hands about in
complicated patterns over this board. Make some noughts, but not in the
squares; put them at both ends of the horizontal and vertical lines. Make faces.
You have now proved:
(a) the Nine Lemma
(b) the Sixteen Lemma
(c) the Twenty-five Lemma
(d) that four-by-four noughts-and-crosses is a simple two-person,
zero-sum game
(e) that 32 + 42 = 52
(f) that square-dancing is for squares
*14. True or false?
(i) A subtractable number is less tractable than a tractable number.
(ii) George Washington, in keeping with his Francophile sympathies, liked to
dance the minuend.
201
Rule of Thumbodynamics.
(iv) The knight's tour refers to Gal, amant de la reine, who alIa, tour magnanime, galamment de l'arene ala tour magne a Nfmes.
(v) Only the fictitious is true.
(vi) Only the true is fictitious.
15. A diagram is:
(i) a picture in a book to make things clear to the reader.
(ii) worth a thousand proofs.
(iii) commutative unless otherwise stated.
(iv) an element in the category of diagrams.
(v) assumed to be chased unless proved otherwise.
16. What shape was the mark set upon Cain when he slew his brother Abel?
17. Consider the following proof that
e211'=1:
since e21l!' is a homomorphism
R~C*,
~e211'.
C*
C*/!.
Then they are equal as soon as the equaliser is applied.
18. Prove that { 1 } ~ Z is universally repelling in the category of pointed
groups.
19. Show that the natural numbers, as obtained by equalisers, have the property,
that {I} ~ No is universally repelling in the category of pointed monoids.
20. Define a freak as a universally repelling object in the category of pointed
heads (colloquially abbreviated to 'pointyheads'). Since heads are individualists,
no two distinct heads are isomorphic. Prove that since there is more than one
freak, the category of pointyheads is not a subcategory of the category of heads.
21. Show that {-I} ~ Z is also a universal pointed group.
22. Show that (i) No ~ Z is injective; i.e., that a natural number cannot be two
distinct positive numbers at the same time;
(ii) -No (") No = {O}; i.e., that 0 is the only integer that is both positive
and negative at the same time;
(iii) every integer is either positive or negative.
23. Can it be shown by measuring the base of the Great Pyramid that the ancient
Egyptians believed the number 5 to be transcendental? If not, what about the
Leaning Tower of Pisa?
CHAPTER 2: Factors and Fractions
1. A book on the sexual life of the praying mantis is divided by the publisher in
three volumes. A part of the book is left over, since the number of pages is not
202
EXERCISES
divisible by three. Show that these extra pages make too slim a book to publish
profitably, and have to be remaindered. Suppose that the left-over pages are just
short of a profitable book, and that the three volumes therqselves also have to
be remaindered. How many pages has the book?
2. Find all prices in Old English money such that, if the prices are rounded to
the nearest decimal equivalent, a full cup of coffee will be more expensive than
two half-cups. Assume that in Old England, a full cup of coffee cost twice as
much as half a cup, and ignore the fact that it is impossible to buy a proper cup
of coffee in Britain. A decimal penny is worth 24 old pence.
*3. Find the number that comes after: 999; 199; 2992.
4. In showing that the homomorphism of counting systems mentioned in the
answer to Question 10 is injective, we manage to prove, among other things, that
22995 is not the same number as 22985. To show this directly, the following
argument is not sufficient: The number 22995 is the telephone number of one of
my girl-friends. The number 22985 is not, because I often dial it by mistake and
I do not get her. Hence they are not the same number. Point out the fallacy in
the argument.
5. Find the quotient and remainder on division by 10 (where 10 is taken as
9 + 1): 1978; 543.
6. Show that if a number is a sixth power-in other words, is equal to the product
of six equal numbers, like 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12-then on casting out
nines it reduces to 1, or to O.
7. What would the reader think of a course in analytic number theory in which
the lecturer failed to define an analytic number?
8. Is the converse of Fermat's theorem true?
9. Show that the highest common factor of no numbers at all is O. What is their
lowest common multiple?
3: Algebra
1. Roman fathers were wont to name their fifth sons Quintus, for some reason
no-one has been able to figure out. Discuss all normal towers of the symmetric
group on five letters, and thus show that fathers of five or more sons were not
in general solvent.
2. What is the relationship between continued fractions and involutes and/or
evolutes? What is the relationship between and and/or or?
3. It has sometimes been suggested that half pi should be called hi, and written T.
Explain why this idea was not discovered until recently.
4. Is a man who has three wives a bigamist? Is it legal for him to divorce one of
his wives? Ignore simultaneous divorces.
5. At how many weeks old is an infant ready to digest the cubic formula?
6. An element of a universally attracting object in the category of archimedean
ordered fields is called irrational if it is not in the image of any homomorphism
from the universally repelling object in the same category; rational if it is.
Between any two irrationals are two rational elements. Does this show that the
real numbers are manic-depressive? Is analysis appropriate in this context?
CHAPTER
203
204
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles
prepared by William Little, H. W. Fowler, and J. Coulson,
revised and edited by C. T. Onions, vols. 1 and 2, Oxford, 1933.
2. Reich, Peter A., The finiteness of natural language, Language,
vol. 45 (l969), pp. 831-843.
3. Melanesian Pidgin Phrase-Book and Vocabulary with Grammatical Introduction, Baltimore (Linguistic Society of America),
1943.
4. Dedekind, Richard, Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen?,
Braunschweig, 1888.
5. Peano, Giuseppe, Formulaire de Mathematique, 3rd edn., Paris,
Gauthier-Villars, 1901.
6. Richard, Jules, Les principes des mathematiques et la probleme
des ensembles, Acta Mathematica, vol. 30 (l906).
7. Durell, Clement Vavasor, Advanced Algebra, vol. 1, London
(G. Bell & Son), 1932.
8. Papy, Mathematique Modeme, vol. 3, Brussels (Didier), 1965.
9. Ball, Walther William Rouse, A Short Account of the History of
Mathematics, 2nd edn., London (MacMillan), 1893.
10. ben Amman, Moses, Torah, Eng. tr. in The Holy Bible, Authorised King James Version, London (Collins).
205
11. ben Amman, Moses, Beresith, Eng. tr. the first book of Moses,
called Genesis, in The Holy Bible, Authorised King James
Version, London (Collins).
12. Lawvere, F. W., The category of categories as a foundation for
mathematics, in Proceedings of the Conference on Categorical
Algebra, La Jolla, 1965, Berlin (Springer), 1966.
13. ben David, Solomon, Misle, Eng. tr. The proverbs, in The Holy
Bible, Authorised King James Version, London (Collins).
14. Littleton, Adam, Linguae Latinae Liber Dictionarius Quadripartitus. A Latine Dictionary, In Four Parts, London, 1684.
15. ben Amman, Moses, Vaicra, Latin tr. by St Jerome Liber
leviticus in Biblia Sacra Vulgatae Editionis, Turin (Pomba),
1840.
16. Dilling, Elizabeth (Mrs Albert W. Dilling), The Roosevelt Red
Record and its Background, Chicago (Dilling), 1936.
17. Heath, Sir Thomas L., The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements,
Translated from the Text of Heiberg, with Introduction and
Commentary, 2nd edn. revised with additions, Cambridge University Press, 1926.
.
18. Borges, Jorge Luis, Ficciones, vol. 5 of Obras Completas de
Jorge Luis Borges, Buenos Aires (Emece), 1967.
19. Lawson, Alfred, Lawsonomy, vol. 1, Detroit (Humanity Benefactor Foundation), 1935.
20. Sunshine, I., editor, Handbook of Analytical Toxicology, Cleveland (The Chemical Rubber Company), 1969.
21. Klamer, David A., A combinatorial formula involving the Fredholm integral equation, Journal of Combinatorial Theory, vol. 5
(1968), pp. 59-74.
22. Banach, Stefan, and Tarski, Alfred, Sur la decomposition des
ensembles de points en parties respectivement congruentes,
Fundamenta Mathematicae, tom 6 (1924) pp. 244-277.
23. Scott, Sir Walter, Waverley; or, 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, volumes
1 and 2 in The Waverly Novels, 48 volumes, London (Archibald
Constable), 1895-96.
24. Moore, Clement Clarke, A Visit from St. Nicholas.
25. Chomsky, Noam, Language and Mind, New York (Harcourt
Brace & World), 1968.
206
BIBLIOGRAPHY
26. Appleton, Reginald Bainbridge, The Elements of Greek Philosophy from Thales to Aristotle, London (Methuen), 1922.
27. Dee, John, introduction to Rudd, Captain Thomas, Euclides
Elements of Geometry the first VI books: in a compendious
form contracted and demonstrated, London, 1657.
28. Gauss, Carl Friedrich, Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, in vol. 1 or
Werke, herausgegeben von der k6niglichen Gesellschaft def
Wissenschaft zu G6ttingen, 1870.
29. Hix, Muriel, The Awful Mathematician's Book, London (Wolfe),
1965.
30. Euclid, Elementa Liber VI, in Euclidis Opera Omnia, ed. by
I. L. Heiberg and H. Menge, Leipzig (Teubner), 1883.
31. Hardy, Godfrey Harold and Wright, Edward Maitland, An
Introduction to the Theory of Numbers, 3rd edn., Oxford University Press, 1954.
32. Watts, Alan Wilson, An Outline of Zen Buddhism, London
(Golden Vista Press), 1932.
33. Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel, The Lord of the Rings, three
volumes, 2nd edn., London (George Allen and Unwin), 1966.
34. Chambers's Encyclopaedia, vol. 13, Spain-Tsushima, New
Edition, London (George Newnes), 1959.
35. Nouveau Petit Larousse Dlustre, Dictionnaire EncyclopCdique,
edition speciale realisee pour les cinquante ans de l'ouvrage de
Claude et Paul Auge, Paris (Larousse), 1952.
207