JamesGrime

Looks like things are slowing down for tonight. Thank you all for your questions. I'll pop back tomorrow and maybe answer a few more. But apart from that, thanks again and see you later, calculator.

I knew I shouldn't have used that word.

I get asked this one a lot, and I will give you the real answer - I do not have a favourite number. (shock!)

To me they are tools, and I have not anthropomorphised the numbers. Mathematicians do get asked this a lot and I think it's like asking an author "what's your favourite letter".

However, if you really want to put me on the spot, I'll say.... 1? Where would we be without the 1. In a semigroup, that's where.

The real answer to that is because I am lazy. And maths is the perfect subject for the lazy student. If you go to lectures you can do the coursework, if you can do the coursework you can do the exam. There are no books to read and no essays to write. Perfect! And for me it was all games and puzzles, and that's not a bad life.

Of course, I continue for more noble reasons than that. At university I really started to get interested in proof. Proof is the best thing about maths. This is where creative thought comes in. To solve a problem, to prove it, you have to take things you've learnt from other places and put them together in a new way. If it's a problem that has not been solved before then you create something completely new. And you can stand back from the work you've done and admire it, like if you were admiring a painting you just finished. Great stuff.

I have. How do we resolve it?