Mr Hawkes. It's sad that you're so dismissive of the joys of mathematics. It does underpin out science and technology, and, hence, our modern way of life. For example, random numbers are essential for the RSA encryption algorithm used for the htps posts to this site ... although it's probably about the only thing on this site that is secure! But I guess as an ex IBM employee you know all about that. Maths is fun and also underpins creativity: it's worth listening to Hannah Fry and Marcus de Sautoy. If only I followed football rather than F1 and supported Fulham, the we could have a discussion on mathematical entropy and determine how random penalty shoot outs really are :-)Let's hope you never stumble into the Rocket when I'm there with old university mates. Mind you, we should be quieter, on one occasion someone eavesdropping at an adjacent table tried to get us interested in his perpetual motion idea that government departments had rejected (I think we might have been discussing nuclear fusion) ... the maths graduates amongst us were gently trying to convince him of his errors - after all, good scientists need broad minds. However, our retired tax inspector friend (who, if I remember correctly, has a sociology degree) was a little more forthright; I think that's probably why he was good at extracting taxes from high net worth individuals lying about their incomes and savings :-)
Michael Ixer ● 20d