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There was a fascinating segment yesterday on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday about the “Millennium Problems”, the most important or most notorious unsolved problems in mathematics. I’d step up and try to solve these — the million-dollar prize for each solution is tempting — but I’m afraid I would be undone by those three words that struck terror (and still do) in the hearts of millions of math students: Show All Work.

Also via NPR: One of my favorite bits of Shakespeare is in King Richard II, Act II, Scene 1, where John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, gives a speech about England that includes the lines:

This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars…

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England…

After reading this, I wonder whether the Bard, if writing these lines today, would have to include a phrase like “This land of trousers”.

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