Mathematics
Created | Updated Apr 17, 2002
This is supposedly "the queen of the sciences". It's not. It's something you can't do, but the tax-man can.
In the olden days, when Maths (as it is known to its British friends) or Math (as it is known to its Yank friends) was just starting up, Pythagoras decided to make a complete mess of everything by having a theorem. Less painful than child-birth, but more painful than constipation, theorems have been the scourge of Mathematics since the beginning of Time. The theorem led to the scare-'em and eventually to the dodgem. So, Pythagoras is responsible for you being thrown from one corner of the dodgem arena to the opposite corner, but at least you have the consolation of being able to work out how far you have travelled. His theorem was imaginatively entitled "Pythagoras' Theorem". This is Greek for, "No, you owe me £17,000 for those kitchen tiles because your kitchen, according to my calculations, is actually larger than Coventry Cathedral."
Pythagoras also did something incredibly clever called "trigonometry". This led to lots and lots of teenagers giggling as they typed "sin16" into their calculators. This gave the Mathematicians an interesting idea, which led to later Mathematicians starting a very, very specialist magazine with lots of large measurements and vulgar fractions.
See also: Pi
In the olden days, when Maths (as it is known to its British friends) or Math (as it is known to its Yank friends) was just starting up, Pythagoras decided to make a complete mess of everything by having a theorem. Less painful than child-birth, but more painful than constipation, theorems have been the scourge of Mathematics since the beginning of Time. The theorem led to the scare-'em and eventually to the dodgem. So, Pythagoras is responsible for you being thrown from one corner of the dodgem arena to the opposite corner, but at least you have the consolation of being able to work out how far you have travelled. His theorem was imaginatively entitled "Pythagoras' Theorem". This is Greek for, "No, you owe me £17,000 for those kitchen tiles because your kitchen, according to my calculations, is actually larger than Coventry Cathedral."
Pythagoras also did something incredibly clever called "trigonometry". This led to lots and lots of teenagers giggling as they typed "sin16" into their calculators. This gave the Mathematicians an interesting idea, which led to later Mathematicians starting a very, very specialist magazine with lots of large measurements and vulgar fractions.
See also: Pi
