Merriman's maths and number 1729 and all that

Srinivasa Ramanujan's 'defence' of the number 1729 is famous among mathematicians. Why did it need defending? The Cambridge scholar G. H. Hardy tells the story that one day he paid a visit to his Indian protégé in hospital and got there in taxi cab number 1729. At Ramanujan's bedside, Hardy remarked in passing that he found the number "dull" and hoped it was not an "unfavourable omen". In an instant the young, convalescent, largely self-taught genius replied: "No, it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways...".

Read the rest of May's editorial here.

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It's a huge honour to bring you Brian Clark's new essay 'Heaven in a wild flower: reflections on imagination'. The first part of the title is a line from William Blake's poem Auguries of Innocence which, among other things, invites us to embrace mystery and find beauty in natural commonplace things. "For artists, including astrological artists, imagination is another way of knowing and perceiving. It is a means of seeing through the world of literality," writes Clark - and, of course, this point goes to the heart of his essay. Astrology has its many techniques to draw on logic and intellect; but is this enough for a deeper understanding of what is the mystical (or even mysterious) language of astrology?

Read the rest of March's editorial here.

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