We wish we weren’t so rusty in our mathematics. One of our favourite
projects has always been to write an algebra book for the use of the
Urchin when he gets a little older. This algebra would be in the form
of a story in which the problems would be introduced naturally into the
movement of the tale, and each one would be (if we could persuade him
to do it) illustrated by Fontaine Fox.
The problems, moreover, would deal with facts and topics familiar to
the Urchin. One problem, for instance, would run something as follows:
Riding in Dame Quickly along the North Hempstead turnpike, the Urchin
notices that a man is walking on the sidewalk but at just such a pace
that a telephone pole prevents him from being recognized. Attempting to
see who the pedestrian is, and foiled by the fact that the simultaneous
motions of Dame Quickly and the man on the sidewalk keep the pole
constantly in the line of sight, the Urchin becomes interested in the
problem. He notes that the speedometer indicates 22 miles an hour.
He persuades his father to stop the car and measure the width of the
road and the sidewalk. Dame Quickly stops opposite the pole and the
measurements are taken. It is 24 feet from the Dame to the pole. The
line along which the man was walking, down the middle of the sidewalk,
was three feet from the pole. How fast was the man walking?[B]
[B] The answer, if you care to work it out, seems to be 2¾
miles per hour.
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