It is the third Sunday in Advent. On this day I am happy to be an outsider to a strange debate about the colour of candles which break out around the Christian world. Not experienced it? Google 'pink candle', 'gaudete candle' or 'Mary candle'. It's a forest fire out there. Wax meltingkly hot.
My church tends to save its smirk for next week when an outbreak of the two Ronnies infects the lighting of candle four.
I used to annoy my children. It is because I pretended to be a great mathematician but really was only good at remembering numbers. When an interesting number came up such as:
147 or 180 I would note that they were the maximum break in snooker or score in darts with three arrers.
Slightly more obscure was a knowledge of 'squares'.
'625, that's 25 squared. Everyone knows that.' Son looks baffled.
I taught anyone who would listen a short cut to the 11 times table.
If any member of my family had cared they would have become the mathematician I never got the chance to be. As it happens the boys channelled their energies into my other loves - music and words. They also picked up excellent social skills due to the strength of their mother's personality and genetic material. Today both also have to be numerate for a living in divers ways. I digress.
So why 1729? It's the smallest number that can be expressed as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. Sometimes called Ramanujan's number.
1729=103+93=123+13
And it makes me stop in my tracks and want to hope and pray more than a sunrise, a painting or even (and this is going some) the sight of a puppy.
My life is brilliant
My love is pure
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