Mar 10, 2010
“ A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.
—Alfréd Rényi cf. “Dodgson [better known as Lewis Carroll] most likely had real models for the strange happenings in Wonderland … He was a tutor in mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford, and Alice’s search for a beautiful garden can be neatly interpreted as a mishmash of satire directed at the advances taking place in Dodgson’s field. In the mid-19th century, mathematics was rapidly blossoming into what it is today: a finely honed language for describing the conceptual relations between things. Dodgson found the radical new math illogical and lacking in intellectual rigor. In “Alice,” he attacked some of the new ideas as nonsense.” —From Algebra in Wonderland
