Mathematics With Love

The Courtship Correspondence of Barnes Wallis, Inventor of the Bouncing Bomb

M. Stopes-Roe

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781403944986
• eBook ISBN:
  9780230552227
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

In 1922 Barnes Wallis FRS, who later invented the transatlantic airship and the bouncing bomb immortalized in the movie The Dam Busters, fell in love for the first and last time - aged 35. The object of his affection, Molly Bloxam, was 17 and setting off to study science at University College London. Her father decreed that the two could correspond only if Barnes taught Molly mathematics in his letters. Mathematics with Love presents, for the first time, the result of this curious diktat: a series of witty, tender and totally accessible introductions to calculus, trigonometry and electrostatic induction that remarkably, wooed and won the girl. Deftly narrated by Barnes and Molly's daughter Mary, Mathematics with Love is an evocative tale of a twenties courtship, a surprising insight into the early life of an engineering genius - and a great way to learn a little mathematics.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on the letters
• Prologue
• 1 Beginnings
• 2 A modern fairytale
• 3 Count von InTheLimit and the Duke of Delta Eks
• 4 Back in England – one year on
• 5 Airships again
• 6 Poor old y
• 7 Real Trig. at last!
• 8 Holidays
• 9 Stale bread and margarine
• 10 The end of the stale bread
• 11 From the sick bed
• 12 The floodgates opened
• 13 A measure of normality
• 14 Love takes the stage
• 15 Two years on: the changing future
• 16 Mr Bloxam’s “Cure”
• 17 Problems and rewards
• 18 Doubts and fears
• 19 The answer
• Index