Bell was well aware of what people would make of his title. He loved to be contrary. Once he gave a talk to the Math club at Caltech about the ancient Greek mathematicians (the history of mathematics was his great interest) in which he spent the entire time talking about all the mistakes they made. Of course to make that point, he had to simply ignore Archimedes (one of his and most mathematician's heroes). As you point out, the incident shows the value of clever marketing.
On 11/26/11, Fletcher Gross <gross@math.utah.edu> wrote:
Caltech offers weekly seminars in the evening for anyone in Pasadena who is interested. The all-time attendance record for such talks was set by a talk entitled "The World's Oldest Profession." The speaker (E. T. Bell) claimed that he had no idea that anyone would think that it was anything other than Mathematics. Of course, maybe that is what you intended to avoid.
I've been chuckling over this post since I first read it on my smart phone. (Still app-free other than what came with the damned device.)
Yes, the "world's oldest profession" is definitely not mathematics, and E. T. Bell must have been raised in a box to not have realized it, lol.
Math (and I lump astronomy and science in general into that category) can be assumed to be the "world's second-oldest profession", though some may argue that soldiery should actually assume that title.
In any case, the fact that Dr. Bell's lecture drew the largest crowd in the history of the lecture series is a powerful statement in favor of clever marketing.
Thanks Fletch!
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