I'll Never Be a Mathematician.

By Ceefax

'No satisfaction with subtraction,
No ambition with addition,
No precision with division,
I'll never be a mathematician.'

"So we put another knot in the string. Now, what does this mean?"

"Errrrr..." He looked around at the landscape, in the vague hope that it might inspire him. It was all there as usual. Sky, light blue today, with a few white puffy clouds overhead. The plains, stretching out towards the horizon, looking golden and beautiful in the afternoon sun. It was funny, he thought, when you saw something every day you didn't really look at it. Or even notice it.

"Well?" she snapped, interrupting his train of thought.

"Dunno," he muttered.

"But I've just been through it twice! Haven't you been listening?"

"Yeah, but I just, I mean, er, I don't really..."

"It's _simple_. Listen. There's a knot on the string for each sheep. There are as many sheep on the grass as there are knots on the string."

"Yeah..."

"Now do you understand?"

"But why do you need knots? You can _see_ how many sheep there are. They're right over there."

"Okay, suppose... Suppose somebody from over-hill came up to you and said he had more sheep than you. How would you prove him wrong?"

"But... what do I care how many sheep he's got?"

"That's not the _point_! Why are you so stupid?!" She threw the string away as hard as she could. One of the sheep idly wandered over and started to chew it. She didn't notice, because she had her face in her hands. He sat, his sloped forehead wrinkling as he thought about her idea. After a while he tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey, the sheep just ate the string. Does that mean we don't have any sheep any more?" She burst noisily into tears. He patted her shoulder awkwardly.

"It's all right, don't cry. I'll get you another bit of string."

"It's not the string," she sobbed, "it's everything. It's _you_. Why can't you _understand_ this?"

"Oh, pardon me for breathing," he said, getting fed up with the constant criticism. He looked around the landscape again, while he replayed the conversation, hoping that it would make more sense the second time. It didn't. His mind wandered, and locked on to one statement.

"Hey..."

"What is it?"

"Why do the over-hillers always say they're better than us?"

"Maybe it's because they are," she said vacantly.

"Oh, just because they're bigger..."

"And faster. And smarter. Not that that's much of a challenge. And I bet their noses don't get in the way when they..."

"We're never going to hear the end of that, are we?"

"Well, they have got smaller noses. And there's more of them, have you noticed that?"

"No, not really." There was a pause as they both stared out towards the setting sun, and just thought (Or just sat).

"I'm sorry I yelled at you. It's just so annoying. It's all so clear in my head, but I can't put it into words..." Another pause. "You know what? We should have different words for... for different _amounts_ of things."

"We do. You have a sheep, many sheep, lots of sheep..."

"No, more like..." She held up one finger, "a sheep," she held up another, "a-a sheep," she held up a third, "a-a-a sheep. Like that."

"Or fingers," he said, trying to make a contribution.

"Yes, or fingers. Do you understand now?"

"Yeah..."

"So how many trees are there over there?" His lips moved, and he scowled and stabbed the air with his finger as he calculated.

"A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a trees!" he said eventually.

"Right!"

"But what if you wanted to say how many trees there are in the forest? You'd be there all day just saying it."

"Not to mention working out how many there are in the first place," she said thoughtfully. "We need different words."

"Eh?"

"We'll make up new words. Like, er, _himta_. What about that?"

He looked blank.

"Different words for different amounts." One finger, "a sheep," two fingers, "himta sheep... like that, see?"

"A sheep, himta sheep... you know, we're never going to remember all of them. Anyway, what's the point? Besides telling the over-hillers we're better than them."

"Well, it'll be useful, won't it? For, I don't know, keeping track of things."

"I don't think this is a very good idea." There was another pause. "Hey, what about the one you had about the stones?"

"Stones?" Her voice sounded distant, as if she wasn't really paying attention.

"You know, you got loads of stones and broke bits off them and rolled them down the hill."

"Oh that. That wasn't working. They kept falling over."

_Falling over what?_ he thought. "If you wanted the stones to roll, you should have left them round. They only fell over because of the missing bits."

"They _were_ round."

"No they weren't. Only the edges. What were you trying to do with them anyway?"

"They only fell over when they slowed down," she said quietly. He was pretty sure she wasn't talking to him. "If you could run alongside them... No, no, get a really big one, then it's own weight would keep it going. You'd need a few people with sticks to get it started though, and it wouldn't work up hills... Go and get me a really big bit of rock." She got up, and headed to the cave to get her tools.

He wandered off to find a large boulder. He didn't understand what she wanted it for, but he was glad she had forgotten about the sheep thing. It had really been giving him a headache.

the end