My Favourite Song

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From the great Stan Kelly-Bootle:

CHORUS Lemma three, very pretty,
and the converse pretty too;
But only God and Fermat
know which of them is true.

VERSE 1 When I studied number theory,
I was happy in me prime,
And all them wild conjectures,
I knocked them two at a time, but...

CHORUS

VERSE 2 Last week, at supervision,
Ken Ribet said to me:
"Did you discover
the deliberate mistake in lemma numberthree?"

CHORUS

VERSE 3 Lemma three it has puzzled
mathematicians by the score,
But Max Newman has engulfed it,
and it won't be seen no more.

CHORUS

VERSE 4 Well, the axiom of choice,
it is very clear to me:
If you wanna choose a lemma, boys,
then don't choose lemma three, for...

CHORUS

VERSE 5 And it's black and white together,
we shall not be moved,
But the four-color theorem,
it hasn't yet been proved

CHORUS Lemma three, very pretty,
and the converse pretty too;
But only God and Andrew
know which of them is true.

(Yes, both myself and the author know the four-colour theorem HAS been proved.)

Comments

  1. Bob Murphy10:06 AM

    Gene,

    Are you and Wabulon the same person?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wabulon6:21 PM

    Gene, that is lovely.

    Bob, no we aren't, or else we have a major problem with narcissism.

    ReplyDelete

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