SCHOOL DAYS

". . . in working out a sum concerning the price of eggs, my mind wandered to the wall-papering problems which we did last week. This led me to attempt to find the perimeter of the eggs in feet and inches, which of course, not knowing the measurement of the eggs, I could not do. I rubbed it all out and began again but was still muddled and got an answer giving the number of eggs (which of course we knew already) instead of their price. . . . I offered to give double marks if Mason could work out the sum correctly himself. He said, 'Let x be an egg.'"

--from The Vexations of A.J. Wentworth, B.A. by H. F. Ellis Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1950: 104-105.

CHEKHOV

"Questions Posed by a Mad Mathematician

1.) I was chased by 30 dogs, 7 of which were white, 8 gray and the rest black. Which of my legs was bitten, the right or the left?
2.) Ptolemy was born in the year 223 A.D. and died after reaching the age of eighty-four. Half his life he spent traveling, and a third, having fun. What is the price of a pound of nails, and was Ptolemy married?
3.) On New Year's Eve, 200 people were thrown out of the Bolshoi Theater's costume ball for brawling. If the brawlers numbered 200, then what was the number of guests who were drunk, slightly drunk, swearing and those trying but not managing to brawl?
4.) What is the sum of the following numbers?
5.) Twenty chests of tea were purchased. Each chest contained 5 poods of tea, each pood comprising 40 pounds. Two of the horses transporting the tea collapsed on the way, one of the carters fell ill and 18 pounds of tea were spilled. One pound contains 96 zolotniks of tea. What is the difference between pickle brine and bewilderment?
6.) There are 137,856,638 words in the English language, and 0.7 more in the French language. The English and the French came together and united their two languages. What is the cost of the third parrot, and how much time was necessary to subjugate these nations?
7.) Wednesday, June 17th, 1881, a train had to leave station A. at 3 A.M. in order to reach station B. at 11 P.M.; just as the train was about to depart, however, an order came that the train had to reach station B. by 7 P.M. Who is capable of loving longer, a man or a woman?
8.) My mother-in-law is 75, and my wife 42. What time is it?"

--from "Zadachi sumasshedshevo matematika," by Anton Checkhov (signed "Antosha Checkonte") in Budilnik, no. 8, 1882. Translated by Peter Constantine in Conjunctions, v. 31, 1998: 25-26.

COSINUS

"Consulted about him, a mystical medium-a notarized phrenologist and podiatrist to countless crowned heads-discovered that he had the bump of perpetual motion. From this she concluded that he would be a great traveller or a great mathematician, unless he got St. Vitus's dance."

". . .Then in the fullness of time he became Doctor Cosinus, an extremely learned gentleman, as absent-minded, however, as he was bald and never failing, when teaching a course at the University of Tobacco and Telegraph, to use his handkerchief for the dustrag, and reciprocally."

". . .'Do sit down, Madame, please,' said Cosinus pleasantly. 'And now what can I do for you?'
'Sir, I have heard much of you,' said Mme Belazor, who mistook Cosinus for the dentist. 'I have come to consult your expertise. I have an old root here that I would like to have extracted. . .'
'An extraction of a root!' exclaimed Zephyrin. 'But that is my specialty! Ever since I was a slip of a boy, I have extracted, for pleasure, all the roots of my classmates! And I may say I have become uniquely skillful in operations of this sort. I do not boast, madame, I simply state a fact! . . . Now, which procedure would you like me to follow?'
'Well, sir, the procedure which will hurt me least.'
'Oh, my operations are always painless!' replied Zephyrin jocularly. 'However, since you are leaving the choice to me, we shall, if you are agreeable, use logarithm tables.'
Mme Belazor didn't wait for futher explanations and fled in extreme terror, convinced that the famous dentist Max (Hilaire) had gone completely mad.
This is how, in our mundane world, rumors are started and legends created."

--L'Idée fixe du Savant Cosinus by Christophe. Paris : A. Colin, 1900. [translations by Kristine Fowler and Anne-Marie Chanet] See also p. 93, Jacques Hadamard: A Universal Mathematician by Vladimir Maz'ya and Tatyana Shaposhnikova. Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society, 1998.

ALICE

"'I'll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is-oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate! However, the Multiplication Table doesn't signify: let's try Geography.'"

"'I only took the regular course.'
'What was that?' inquired Alice.
'Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,' the Mock Turtle replied; 'and then the different branches of Arithmetic-Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.'"

--Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll; with illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. London : Macmillan and Co., 1865.

ALICE 2

"'I know what you're thinking about,' said Tweedledum: 'but it isn't so, nohow.'
'Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'"

"'Can you do Addition?' the White Queen asked. 'What's one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?'
'I don't know,' said Alice. 'I lost count.'
'She can't do Addition,' the Red Queen interrupted. 'Can you do Subtraction? Take nine from eight.'
'Nine from eight I can't, you know,' Alice replied very readily: 'but-'
'She can't do Subtraction,' said the White Queen. 'Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife-what's the answer to that?'"

--Through the Looking-glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll; with illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. London : Macmillan and Co., 1872.

TEXTBOOK STYLE

"16. Example. Beautiful and dear delightful girl, whose eyes are like a fawn's! tell me the numbers resulting from one hundred and thirty-five, taken into twelve, if thou be skilled in multiplication by whole or by parts, whether by subdivision of form or separation of digits. Tell me, auspicious woman, the quotient of the product divided by the same multiplier."

--from Bhaskaracarya. Lílávatí. Allahabad: Kitab Mahal, 1967. [Translation by H. T. Colebrooke of the 12th-century original.]

LOBACHEVSKY

"For many years now, Mr. Danny Kaye, who has been my particular idol since childbirth, has been doing a routine about the great Russian director Stanislavsky and the secret of success in the acting profession. And I thought it would be interesting to st- . . . to adapt this idea to the field of mathematics. I always like to make explicit the fact that before I went off not too long ago to fight in the trenches, I was a mathematician by profession. I don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know; I could be making, oh, 3000 dollars a year just teaching.

"Be that as it may, some of you may have had occasion to run into mathematicians and to wonder therefore how they got that way, and here, in partial explanation perhaps, is the story of the great Russian mathematician Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky.

Who made me the genius I am today,
The mathematician that others all quote?
Who's the professor that made me that way,
The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat?

One man deserves the credit,
One man deserves the blame,
and Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name. Oy!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache...

I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky.
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize!

Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
Only be sure always to call it please, "research."

And ever since I meet this man my life is not the same,
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name. Oy!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache...

I am never forget the day I am given first original paper to write. It was on Analytic and Algebraic Topology of Locally Euclidean Metrization of Infinitely Differentiable Riemannian Manifold.
Bozhe moi!
This I know from nothing.
But I think of great Lobachevsky and I get idea - haha!

I have a friend in Minsk,
Who has a friend in Pinsk,
Whose friend in Omsk
Has friend in Tomsk
With friend in Akmolinsk.
His friend in Alexandrovsk
Has friend in Petropavlovsk,
Whose friend somehow
Is solving now
The problem in Dnepropetrovsk.

And when his work is done -
Haha! - begins the fun.
From Dnepropetrovsk
To Petropavlovsk,
By way of Iliysk,
And Novorossiysk,
To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk
To Tomsk to Omsk
To Pinsk to Minsk
To me the news will run
, Yes, to me the news will run!

And then I write
By morning, night,
And afternoon,
And pretty soon
My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed,
When he finds out I published first!

And who made me a big success
And brought me wealth and fame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name. Oy!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache...

I am never forget the day my first book is published.
Every chapter I stole from somewhere else.
Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory.
This book, this book was sensational!
Pravda - ah, Pravda - Pravda said:
"Jeel beel kara ogoday blyum blocha jeli," ("It stinks").
But Izvestia! Izvestia said:
"Jai, do gudoo sun sai pere shcum," ("It stinks").
Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva bought the movie rights for six million rubles,
Changing title to 'The Eternal Triangle',
With Brigitte Bardot playing part of hypotenuse.

And who deserves the credit?
And who deserves the blame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Oy!

--from Tom Lehrer Revisited. Reprise Records, 1959. (transcription from Graeme Cree)