Newton's Binomial Theorem 



nought. Page after page was filled in this 

 queer fashion, each line winding up with 0. 



'What are you doing with all those rows of 

 figures amounting to zero?' I asked him one 

 day. 



The mathematician gave me a leery look, 

 picked up in barracks. A sarcastic droop in 

 the corner of his eye showed how he pitied my 

 ignorance. My colleague of the many noughts 

 did not, however, take an unfair advantage 

 of his superiority. He told me that he was 

 working at analytical geometry. 



The phrase had a strange effect upon me. 

 I ruminated silently to this purpose : there 

 was a higher geometry, which you learnt more 

 particularly with combinations of letters in 

 which X and y played a prominent part. 

 When my next-door neighbour reflected so 

 long, clutching his forehead between his 

 hands, he was trying to discover the hidden 

 meaning of his own hieroglyphics; he saw 

 the ghostly translation of his sums dancing in 

 space. What did he perceive? How would 

 the alphabetical signs, arranged first in one 

 and then in another manner, give an image of 

 the actual things, an image visible to the eyes 

 of the mind alone? It beat me. 



293 



