CLASSICAL CORNER

263: 5-4-3-2-1

(Always quite liked Manfred Mann – or was I just Blinded By The Light..?)

“In the highest of mathematics, final, sacred mathematics, can this next to the simplest problem in so-called mathematical astronomy be solved?” – Fort, Books, p322.

“Every mathematics master dreads the day when he will have to explain the Theorem of Pythagoras” – HF Ellis, The World of AJ Wentworth, BA (Penguin, 1964, p18).

Seems natural to kick off with Pythagoras (). Ellis has a delightful scene of hapless Wentworth trying to explain (as we called it) the square on the hippopotamus to his refractory class, one of whom interjects: “Sir, it would be