The Greatest Scandal Of The Century In

The Last Level Of Metaphor In The Alice Books Is This: That Life, Viewed Rationally And Without Illusion, Appears To Be A Nonsense Tale Told By An Idiot Mathematician.

Consider A Cow. A Cow Doesn't Have The Problem-solving Skill Of A Chimpanzee, Which Has Discovered How To Get Termites Out Of The Ground By Putting A Stick Into A Hole. Evolution Has Developed The Brain's Ability To Solve Puzzles, And At The Same Time Has Produced In Our Brain A Pleasure Of Solving Problems.

One Would Be Hard Put To Find A Set Of Whole Numbers With A More Fascinating History And More Elegant Properties Surrounded By Greater Depths Of Mystery--and More Totally Useless--than The Perfect Numbers.

Biographical History, As Taught In Our Public Schools, Is Still Largely A History Of Boneheads; Ridiculous Kings And Queens, Paranoid Political Leaders, Compulsive Voyagers, Ignorant General The Flotsam And Jetsam Of Historical Currents. The Men Who Radically Altered History, The Great Scientists And Mathematicians, Are Seldom Mentioned, If At All.

As Bertrand Russell Once Wrote, Two Plus Two Is Four Even In The Interior Of The Sun.