philomathy

Professor Phil O’Mathy, lunching with his colleague Mal Honnet, was bemoaning the state of mathematics education. “Here we are, in one of the great institutions of learning in the world, and yet I doubt one in a hundred could even… Continue Reading →

“Profesor O’Mathy?” There had been a knock on his office door. Professor Phil O’Mathy opened it and saw that it was Brenda Evans, from his first-year calculus class. While she was the sort of student he usually disdained, inattentive and… Continue Reading →

Professor Phil O’Mathy would lecture at the same speed at which he thought, which was so fast that his poor students had no hope of keeping up. Finally, a delegation of them went to his office to plead with him.… Continue Reading →

Professor Phil O’Mathy was asked by a philosopher friend to be part of a panel addressing the question “Is the external world real?” When his turn came to speak, O’Mathy said “Mathematicians cannot answer this question; the best we can… Continue Reading →

Professor Phil O’Mathy wrote a long string of symbolic logic on the blackboard, telling his class, “I think you’ll all agree that this is obvious.” Done, he looked at his work once more and his face clouded. “Just a moment,”… Continue Reading →

Mathematics is a universal language, and the homes of its greatest poets circle the globe: Greece gave us Pythagoras and Euclid, England Newton and Russell, France Descartes, Germany Gauss, India Ramanujan. These are geniuses who will never be forgotten. Yet… Continue Reading →