Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T15:39:43.989Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The story of Blanche Descartes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2016

Cedric A. B. Smith  and
Steve Abbott
Cedric A. B. Smith
Affiliation:
91 High Road West, Felixstowe IP11 9AB
Steve Abbott
Affiliation:
91 High Road West, Felixstowe IP11 9AB
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Recently a poem, written by Blanche Descartes in the 1930s, was republished in the Gazette, with the additional attribution ‘communicated via Cedric A. B. Smith’. Cedric had reported ‘it was written after Blanche heard that Hector Pétard was about to be married. She composed the verse as a wedding present. Hector is still active mathematically, though I suspect that he may be in his mid nineties’. We felt that readers might be interested to know something about the mysterious Blanche Descartes, and the origins of the poem. It makes quite a story. At the risk of boring you, we will start at the beginning.

Type
Articles
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 87 , Issue 508 , March 2003 , pp. 23 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Descartes, Blanche, Hymne to Hymen, Math. Gaz. 86 (March 2002). Originally published in Eureka, the magazine of the Archimedeans (the Cambridge University student mathematical society).Google Scholar
2. Steve Jones, View from the lab: a mastermind for a number of reasons, Daily Telegraph (23 January 2002).Google Scholar
3. Povey, Sue, Obituary: Cedric Smith: Mathematician who turned his love of problem-solving and statistical expertise to the study of genetics, The Times (21 February 2002).Google Scholar
4. Brooks, R. L., Smith, C. A. B., Stone, A. H. and Tutte, W. T., The dissection of rectangles into squares, Duke Math. J. 7 (1940) pp. 312–340.Google Scholar
5. Skinner, J. D. II, Squared squares. Who’s who and what’s what. Published by the author at 1740 North 59th Street, Lincoln NE 68505, USA.Google Scholar
6. Sprague, R. P., Beipiel einer Zerlegung des Quadrats in lauter verschiedene Quadrate, Math. Z. 45 pp. 607–608.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7. Kingston, Joe and MacHale, Des, Dissecting squares, Math. Gaz. 85 (November 2001) pp. 403–430.Google Scholar
8. Alexanderson, Gerald L., Mugier, Dale H. (eds), Lion hunting and other mathematical pursuits: a collection of mathematics, verse, and stories by Ralph P. Boas, Jr, Mathematical Association of America (1995).Google Scholar
9. Singh, Simon, The code book: the secret history of codes and code-breaking, Fourth Estate (2000).Google Scholar
10. Younger, Dan, Obituary: Professor William T. Tutte, Kitchener-Waterloo Record (2002).Google Scholar
11. Tutte, W. T., FISH and I. Transcript of a lecture given at the opening ceremony of the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research at the University of Waterloo, available online at http://frode.home.cern.eh/ frode/crypto/tutte.pdf. Google Scholar
12. Biggs, Norman, Obituary: W. T. Tutte, The Independent (9 May 2002).Google Scholar
13. Tutte, W. T., Graph theory (reprinted edition), Cambridge University Press (2001).Google Scholar
14. Erdős, P. and Stone, A. H., Some remarks on almost periodic transformations, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 52 (1945) pp. 126–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15. Comfort, W. W., An interview with Arthur Stone, Topological Commentary 2(1) (February 1997).Google Scholar
16. Brooks, R. L., On colouring the nodes of a network, Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 37 (1941) pp. 194–197.Google Scholar
17. Smith, C. A. B. and Tutte, W. T., The number of ways of grading examination candidates, Math. Gaz. 86 (March 2003) pp. 34–35.Google Scholar
18. Obituary: Professor Bill Tutte: Mathematician who, as a Bletchley Park codebreaker, gained access to the ciphers of the German Army High Command, The Times (8 May 2002).Google Scholar
19. Smith, C. A. B., The counterfeit coin problem, Math. Gaz. 31 (February 1947) pp. 31–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
20. Smith, Cedric A. B., Gamma function, Math. Gaz. 23 (December 1939) p. 479.Google Scholar
21. Smith, Cedric A. B., Further notes on elliptic function theory, Math. Gaz. 29 (July 1945) pp. 119–121.Google Scholar
22. Smith, Cedric A. B., On the definition of logarithms, Math. Gaz. 31 (October 1947) pp. 246–247.Google Scholar
23. Descartes, Blanche, Network colourings, Math. Gaz. 32 (May 1948), pp. 67–69.Google Scholar