## Friday, July 18, 2008

### One Two Three... Infinity

The following limerick can be found at the beginning of George Gamow's book, One Two Three... Infinity.

There was a young fellow from Trinity
Who took $\sqrt{\infty}$.
But the number of digits
Gave him the fidgets;
He dropped Maths and took up Divinity.

Rolls of the tongue nicely. Trinity by the way, is a college at The University of Cambridge, famous for its famous mathematicians!

I found the limerick in Paul Nahin's book, An Imaginary Tale, and I can erm.. happily perhaps state that I am on course to finish the book in 218 days, if I keep up my current record of reading a page a day. (Can't you sense my excitement?) Actually I found his preface pretty interesting and amusing at the same time. He's the kinda person I wouldn't mind meeting and talking to, but they say that you shouldn't judge a book by its preface so I will bite my tongue for 218 days before commenting further!

Before I clock of for the day (that's a lie by the way) how do you pronounce preface? Is it "preeeeee- face" or "pref - as"? I'm just curious because I once said "preeeee-face" and was laughed at by some friends, but then I asked a teacher and he said preeeface. However he did debate on whether or not it was pref-as, if it's the thing at the front of books(!) so I'm just checking.

Or is this another word divide between the North and the South? I still can't get over glaaaaaaaaaaaaa....s! :p (I'm joking by the way so you can put away your axes now. And NO I'm not from Manchester...seriously! I guess this is the point I start running...).