chickenfeet

The other day I was looking through lists of mathematics jokes because boegle needed maths puns for a play. This was one of the jokes:

Q. Why can't mathematicians tell the difference between Halloween and Christmas?

A. Because Oct 31 = Dec 25

Now:
[Poll #890543]

It's been a really long time since I did any serious mathematics though I occasionally play around with stuff to discover whether I've forgotten everything I once knew or not. I used to be pretty decent at it. I have a 2(i) from Durham in the subject but it was a long tome ago. Also I specialised fairly heavily in probability theory and certain areas of pure mathematics so, even back then, I had the barest minimum of mathematical physics and then there's all the stuff that has become mainstream since I was a lad. So I'm challenging myself to refresh and update by working through my newly acquired copy of Penrose's The Road to Reality. It's neat. It starts with Euclid and works through to twistor theory. I am very interested to see at what point I turn into a gibbering wreck but for now it's fun to realise that I can still prove Pythagoras' theorem or derive Playfair's axiom from Euclid's parallel postulate.