| This short short story, published in the professional journal
IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems describes a
talk by the (fictional) famous mathematician Professor Osgood. Greatly
limited by government security precautions, the professor cryptically
announces his discovery that "between two and three...is a previously
unsuspected number." The audience is thrilled by the discovery both
because they know that they will all benefit from the tremendous amount of
grant money the government will be contributing to this research, and (as
the last paragraph suggests) because they know that if both the US and
Soviet Union (this was 1979, remember) continue to waste their efforts on
this sort of research, then they have nothing to fear.
| Contributed by
Paul J. Nahin This story was "a spoof on the Cold War (which in 1979 was
roaring
hot and heavy). The worry (in the story) about a 'numbers gap' was a
take-off on
the then much talked-about 'missile gap.' I simply used the unsuspected
number
between 2 and 3 as a device that would be immediately understandable by
all
of *any* technical pursuasion. I wasn't attacking mathematics research,
but those
who would profit from dubious 'military paper-pushing' (whatever its
nature might
be)."
|
This story was recently reprinted in Nahin's book Number Crunching, which also mentions this Website (and the fact that I originally misinterpreted the story, prompting him to send me the message quoted above).
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