Oddities like this remind me of a story that I have now copied from C. P. Snow's forwards to "A Mathematician's Apology" by G. H. Hardy. A lovely and short book that I must re-read. Sadly the story has no relevance to Sundials nor to the calendar so if you are offended by my straying off the approved topic I crave your forgiveness.
"................. The Royal Society elected him a Fellow at the age of thirty (which, even for a mathematician, is very young). Trinity also elected him a Fellow in the same year. He was the first Indian to be given either of these distinctions. He was amiably grateful. But he soon became ill. It was difficult, in war-time to move him to a kinder climate. "Hardy used to visit him, as he lay dying in hospital at Putney. It was on one of those visits that there happened the incident of the taxi-cab number. Hardy had gone out to Putney by taxi, as usual his chosen method of conveyance. He went into the room where Ramanujan was lying. Hardy, always inept about introducing a conversation, said, probably without a greeting, and certainly as his first remark: ' I thought the number of my taxi-cab was 1729. It seemed to me rather a dull number.' To which Ramanujan replied: 'No, Hardy! No, Hardy! It is a very interesting number. It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.' That is the exchange as Hardy recorded it. It must be substantially accurate. He was the most honest of men; and further, no one could possibly have invented it." At 22:31 23/11/1999 +0100, Jean-Paul Cornec wrote: >It is curious to note there is almost the same >lapse of time between the two "all-odd" >dates and the two "all-even" dates : a bit more >than 1111 years. > >Jean-Paul Cornec > >48°44'24" N - 3°27'27"W > >---------- >> De : Tony Moss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> A : Sundial Mail List ><[email protected]> >> Objet : Oddity >> Date : dimanche 21 novembre 1999 11:41 >> >> This snippet came to me too late to share on >the day. >> >> I can't vouch for it's accuracy I'm afraid. >> >> Tony Moss. >> >> >> << Today is November 19th, 1999. >> >The numerical format for Wednesday was >11-17-1999. All of the DIGITS are >> >odd. The next Odd day is 11-19-1999. (which >is today) The next >> >Odd day after that will be 1-1-3111 - which >is well over a thousand >> years >> >away, which we will never see. >> >Days such as 4-13-89 have both even and odd >digits, thus, it is neither >> odd >> >nor even. >> >The next even day will be 2-2-2000 - the >first one since 8-28-888. So, >> now >> >you have a reason to celebrate this Friday as >it'll be your last odd >> day on >> >Earth!!!!!! >> > > ------------------------------Andrew Pettit-------------------------------- e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Postman Pat: 3, Lucastes Road, HAYWARDS HEATH, West Sussex, RH16 1JJ, ENGLAND Tel. UK: (+44) (0)1444 453111
