/sci/ - Science & Math

>>8037321

Wiki says it all, complete with a section on Rhind which agrees with what I'm seeing in Chace. Incidentally, the wiki on "spelt" suggests that attribution of its cultivation to Ancient Egypt is erroneous (diff. species of wheat or somesuch), but even if that's an old philological goof, it's immaterial to the amusement of the problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_I_was_going_to_St_Ives

But it gets even better. Immediately following his own St. Ives comment, Chace pulls Fibonacci into the conversation, and suggests the thing that we would /like/ to believe, historically true or not, and I quote:

"Rodet (1882, page 111) found in the Liber Abaci of Leonardo of Pisa (see Bibliography, 1857) a problem of geometrical progression expressed in much the same way, and having the ratio 7, and he suggests that Problem 79, absurd as is its heterogeneous addition, has perpetuated itself through all the centuries from the times of the ancient Egyptians."

Problem 79 is a meme. Praise Kek.

Actually, this purported "transmission" of the meme requires a historical analysis. That "St. Ives" was published long /before/ the Rhind Papyrus got back into the world spotlight suggests a spoiler of this theory. For those who may not be aware, the villian in one of the Die Hard movies uses "St Ives" as a riddle to taunt pic related, hence my picture choice here.