The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 38, September 19, 2004, Article 16

NEWTON DIDN'T KEEP THE BOOKS AT THE MINT

  From NewsScan Daily, September 16, 2004
  Newton Story

  "With the goal of eradicating the all-too-common fear of
  mathematics, British science writer Karl Sabbagh offers the
  following story:

  "The popular idea of mathematics is that it is largely concerned
  with calculations. What many people don't realize -- and
  mathematicians at parties have given up correcting them -- is
  that mathematicians are often no better calculators, and
  sometimes worse, than the average nonmathematician. An
  incident during my first meeting with the Franco-American
  mathematician Louis de Branges illustrates that nicely. We
  were discussing the idea that mathematicians did all their best
  work when they were young, and I asked him when he had
  some particular insight. 'Let's see,' he said. 'It happened in 1984
  and I was born 1932. So was I over fifty? How old was I
  then... ?' He thought for a while, wrestling with the problem as
  if it were the Riemann Hypothesis itself, and then gave up
  (because the exact figure was unimportant, not because he
  couldn't  do it). Even the giants of mathematics suffer from
  this minor disability: 'Sir Isaac Newton,' said one observer,
  'though so deep in algebra and fluxions, could not readily
  make up a common account: and, when he was Master of the
  Mint, used to get somebody else to make up his accounts
  for him.'"

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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