Let's focus on the important points here. The elliptical table is what's interesting. I'm sure Alex is eccentric and this is reflected by his choice of adjectives, but let us put away the axes because we all know he's affine fellow. On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 10:43 AM, James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
Maybe Alex's description of his game as "thrilling" is meant ironically, as an enactment of false immodesty (the seldom-seen flip side of false modesty). Subtext: "This is the sort of thing I'd say about the game I invented if I were a self-aggrandizing American rather than a self-deprecating Brit."
:-)
Jim Propp
On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 12:08 PM, Alex Bellos <alexbellos@gmail.com> wrote:
In my book i gave exactly that definition.
We British are unseemly. It’s our most charming trait. ;)
On 16 Jul 2015, at 16:46, Dan Asimov <asimov@msri.org> wrote:
It strikes me as unseemly for you to describe your own game as "thrilling" and "amazingly fun" (other than in commercial publicity materials).
In any case, maybe the next time you describe the mathematical properties of an ellipse you might mention that the ellipse can be defined as the curve any point of whose sum of distances to two specific points is a constant.
—Dan
On Jul 16, 2015, at 8:31 AM, Alex Bellos <alexbellos@gmail.com> wrote:
I first read about elliptical pool tables in Martin Gardner.
So I decided to go make one.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/alexs-adventures-in-numberland/2015/jul/1... < http://www.theguardian.com/science/alexs-adventures-in-numberland/2015/jul/1...
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