"Mathematics" -- what an evocative word! To some, it means the joy of discovery; it means a discipline which somehow contrives to be both ascetic and aesthetic; it is a system of thought in which logic can be beautiful and rigour satisfying. To others, it means a dusty desk in a dusty classroom, with a dusty teacher writing on a dusty blackboard. And exams, of course.

If you fall into the latter category, I sympathise. Sums. Multiplication. Long division. Just when you think you're getting the hang of it, in come fractions. Decimals. Algebra. Geometry. Trigonometry! And if by some miracle you survive all that, calculus hits you in the small of the back. And exams, of course.

But that isn't what mathematics is about, any more than Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is about spelling, or prepositions, or adjectives, or the dative case, or the pluperfect tense. And exams, of course.

No, The Lord of the Rings is far from a dry academic exercise. It's an adventure. But spelling, and prepositions, and adjectives, and all the rest of it, are things you need to understand before you can enjoy it. Now, it doesn't actually matter whether you know the word preposition or not; but if you don't know how words like above, below, and behind (which, by the way, are all prepositions!) are used in the English language, then you are not going to get as much enjoyment out of The Lord of the Rings as those who do. When you're reading a cracking good book, constantly looking stuff up in a grammar reference can be rather intrusive, to say the least. If you really want to get the best out of a book, you have to know the language.

Well, it's the same with mathematics. It's an adventure. Algebra and trigonometry and so on are not even remotely what mathematics is about. But you do need a reasonable grasp of them (and other mathematical tools) if you want to really enjoy the wonders of mathematical exploration.

I am no mathematician, and Blaise Pascal would certainly consider that a great defect in my character! But I do enjoy such mathematics as I can understand. On this part of the site, I've gathered together just one or two surprising and delightful wotsits about mathematics that I hope you, too, will be equipped to enjoy. (If you've seen 'em before, well, c'est la vie.)