Subject: Re: [HM] "President Garfield's Proof"
From: Pat Touhey (Touhey@aol.com)
Date: Wed Jan 26 2000 - 13:12:30 EST
On Sun, 23 Jan 2000, Karen Dee Michalowicz wrote:
"I am so happy that after all that has happened in US politics in the
last generation my colleagues can see that there was a US politician
beside Jefferson who knew some mathematics."
And in a message dated 1/24/2000 John Harper wrote:
"We never thought Jefferson was the only one. Benjamin Franklin must have
known some mathematics too."
There have been a few others.
"Mathematics was very easy to me ... My idea then was to get through the
course, secure a detail for a few years as assistant professor of mathematics
at the Academy, and afterwards obtain a permanent position as professor in
some respectable college; but circumstances always did shape my course
different from my plans."
- U.S. Grant "Personal Memoirs" Vol. 1 (1885)
and
"Spread before him on his desk were sheets of paper covered with figures and
equations, plenty of blank paper, a compass, rule, pencils, bottles of ink in
different colors. He hardly turned his head as Herndon came in. He covered
sheet after sheet with more figures, signs, symbols. As he left for the
courthouse later in the day he told Herndon he was trying to square the
circle.
He was gone only a short time, came back and spent the rest of the day trying
to square the circle, and next day again toiled on the famous problem that
has immemorially baffled mathematicians. After two days' struggle, worn down
physically and mentally, he gave up trying to square the circle."
- "Abraham Lincoln" by Carl Sandburg Vol. 1 (1926)
and one of my favorites, although the reference is forgotten;
" ...you can never make a lawyer if you do not understand what `demonstrate'
means; and I left my situation in Springfield, went home to my father's house
and stayed there till I could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid
at sight. I then found out what `demonstrate' means, and went back to my law
studies."
- Abraham Lincoln
Pat Touhey
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