The Blindfolded Archer

Donald MacKenzie

  • The (Mis)behaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward by Benoit Mandelbrot and Richard Hudson
    Profile, 328 pp, £9.99, September 2005, ISBN 1 86197 790 5

A lycée in Lyon, 1944. A young Polish refugee is hiding in the school. His identity papers are forged, and deportation to the death camps may await him if he is caught. His attention, however, is not on the dangers outside but on a mathematics lesson. When he first started taking the classes, ‘he sat uncomprehending before the meaningless words and numbers on the blackboard.’ Today, though, a picture has coalesced in his mind. It renders redundant the teacher’s protracted algebraic manipulations. He raises his hand: ‘Sir, you don’t need to make any calculations. The answer is obvious.’

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