Some readers will have registered that we are passing through a period of great strain, difficulty and hardship arising from factors like the Pandemic, the Crisis in Education, Turbulence in the Financial System, Scarce Energy, Climate Change and the War in Ukraine. The gloomiest congenital pessimists may read all this […]

An Algebra of Knots The previous blog in this series (No. 28) introduced a construction protocol for knots which serves, in effect, as a way of classifying them mathematically.  At first sight the construction diagrams arising from this protocol look much neater than typical knots.  But the new protocol covers […]

On Defining Knots The blogs in this series are being offered to stimulate reason… not by preaching or propaganda, but by example, by following reasoning in action  —as it “works its magic”, as it “makes a difference” or as it “shines a light”…  onto otherwise unexpected, unpromising mathematic dark corners. […]

The higher maths establishment seem to insist, in effect, that no elementary version of Fermat’s lost theorem will, or could, ever be found. I think this is the best interpretation one can attach to their taboo against any notion that the problem needs to be re-opened. History appears to support […]