| Contributed by
Jameela Lares, University of Southern Mississippi
As the jacket
blurb explains, the book is "a philosophical fireside tale wrapped lightly
around a mathematical problem, revealing scholarly life and attitudes at a
well-known English college. It spins the clever tale of Thomas Gray, the
(curiously named) female cat who douns herself (still more curiously) at
Cambridge University helping a historian of mathematics with his
research." The central mathematical puzzle is what a medieval manuscript
says about the problem of Theodorus of Cyrene and the square root of
seventeen.
The book is an engaging read, one I highly recommend for its literary
merits. I cannot speak to its mathematical accuracy, but the author lists
what look like respectable sources in his Acknowledgements.
I had to get my own copy of this book, even though it was out of print.
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