Stories with knots

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Tales with knots ( English original title A Tangled Tale ) is a collection of mathematical puzzle stories by the author Lewis Carroll . They originally appeared in The Monthly Packet from April 1880 to November 1884 , then revised and illustrated by Arthur Burdett Frost in 1886 as a book by Macmillan Publishers . The German translation by Walter E. Richartz was published in 1978.

construction

The book contains ten short stories, called knots , each of which contains one or more math problems. There are also some joke questions and paradoxes . The tasks can be solved with normal school knowledge, there are linear systems of equations , rule of three and the like. In the second part the solutions to the tasks are presented. These start with the problem extracted from the story and a solution including a solution. Carroll then presents extracts of the solutions sent in by the readers under pseudonyms, especially mocking those who sent wrong solutions in a funny tone. Again and again he also points out the need to send in not only the solution but also the solution path, and finally goes on to no longer mention the senders of solutions without a solution path. The solutions are each concluded with a list of those who have submitted a correct solution, divided into three classes, depending on the quality of the solution. After some solutions are followed, further comments on previous assignments emerged from letters between Carroll and individual readers.

A dateline task remains unsolved because, as Carroll writes, the necessary information he hoped to obtain is still missing.

content

The book is preceded by a poem that, like an acrostic, gives the name of one of his young friends Edith Rix if you read the second letter of each verse.

In the foreword Carroll writes about the intention of the work: “ The writer's intention was to embody in each Knot (like the medicine so dexterously, but ineffectually, concealed in the jam of our early childhood) one or more mathematical questions — in Arithmetic, Algebra, or Geometry, as the case might be — for the amusement, and possible edification, of the fair readers of that magazine. ”(German:“ The author's intention was to give each knot (like medicine, which was so cleverly but ineffectively hidden in the jam of our early childhood) one or more mathematical questions - in arithmetic, algebra or geometry, whatever it is resulted - to be added to the amusement and possible edification of the reader of this magazine. ")

The individual stories do not have a continuous plot, but some refer to previous stories. There are three different groups of people who initially seem to be unrelated, but are united in the final story. The stories take place in the 20th century, from the perspective of that time, so in the future. The associated technical progress is shown in the third node, which describes a device that can throw hundreds of travelers into and out of train compartments within a second.

Node I.
Two travelers in knight armor climb a mountain. The task is to determine the distance covered and the time at which the summit was reached from the various speeds on the plane, when climbing up and down.
Node II
Two brothers, Hugh and Lambert, pose a problem to their teacher Balbus (named after the hero of their Latin exercise book) from a letter from their father who is currently traveling to the distant country of Kgovjni. However, Balbus only gives an evasive answer and instead gives them the task of determining which of the four houses with free rooms in a square place from which the distances to the other three are as short as possible.
Node III
Clara, who is visiting her aunt Macke Mattik (in the original: Mad Mathesis ) in London, bets with her who will see the most oncoming trains on a tour. She loses the first time, but gets a second chance with modified rules.
Node IV
The two travelers from the first story, who the reader now learns to be father and son, are now on their way from Mhruxi to Kgovjni. When fishermen who travel on the same ship as you lose all your money in the sea due to an accident, the question arises for them whether they can use the confused information to determine how much each of them has lost.
Node V
Clara and her aunt visit an art exhibition at Burlington House . Once again, her aunt challenges Clara to a competition, this time about the labeling of images according to a certain system.
Node VI
The ruler of Kgovjni, where the two travelers have meanwhile arrived, orders them to determine the winner in a competition.
Node vii
Since she has forgotten how much she paid for her meal, Clara has to determine the amount from other bills in order to get the money back from her aunt.
Node VIII
The travelers leave Kgovjni with the task of knowing when they will meet the next omnibus.
Node IX
After Balbus has explained the Archimedean principle to the two brothers , they try to fathom some related paradoxes. When they ask Balbus about it, instead of giving an answer, he just asks them a new question.
Node X
Clara, accompanied by her aunt, returns to her father, where his two sons Hugh and Lambert have also just arrived with Balbus. Her father explains to his three sons that they will only receive the money that traditionally they should receive for their birthday when they can calculate their age from some given data. Macke Mattik also promises her niece a reward for solving a math problem.

reception

Carroll's nephew wrote of the book: “ With some people this is the most popular of all his books; It is certainly the most successful attempt he ever made to combine mathematics and humor. ”(German:“ For some people this is the most popular of his books; it is certainly the most successful attempt to combine mathematics and humor that he has ever undertaken. ”) Lewis Carroll can be seen with this work as the predecessor of Samuel Loyds , his books became popular with math puzzles a short time later.

The tasks were published again and again, sometimes in joint editions with the Pillow Problems , another collection of puzzles by Lewis Carroll.

Other authors of mathematical puzzles also repeatedly fall back on the tasks and publish them in a new form, for example Heinrich Hemme in his book Alice im Knobelland .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Gardner : The Universe in a Handkerchief. Springer, New York 2005, ISBN 0-387-25641-5 . P. 65.
  2. ^ Knot IV: “two country gentlemen of the Twentieth Century”
  3. ^ Stuart Dodgson Collingwood: The Life and Letters Of Lewis Carroll. Kessinger Publishing, 2004, ISBN 1-4179-2625-2 . ( The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll in Project Gutenberg ( currently usually not available for users from Germany ) )
  4. ↑ Heinrich Hemme: Alice in Knobelland. Rowohlt-Taschenbuchverlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-499-62123-9 .