NATURE|Vol 454|31 July 2008 SUMMER BOOKS OPINION

man invited his father’s brother-in-law, symmetrical poem that can be read vertically his brother’s father-in-law, his father-in- and horizontally. law’s brother, and his brother-in-law’s Lewis Carroll in Numberland is not a conven- father. Others were in the form of fal- tional biography. Robin Wilson has winnowed lacies to debunk. Dodgson once asked Dodgson’s prodigious output into a first-rate a 14-year-old boy to find the flaw in his scrapbook of proofs and puzzles. Sadly, his tone proof that 2 + 2 = 5, which Wilson is often fawning and flat — not up to the stand- reveals to be a stealthy divi- ard of mathematical storytelling he set in his sion by zero. A few problems previous book, Four Colours Suffice (Allen Lane, hinged simply on a pun. 2002), on the history of the conjecture that four Later in life, Dodgson colours can fill any map without any bordering taught symbolic logic with countries sharing a colour. By immersing us in a board game that used Dodgson’s correspondence, however, Wilson red and grey counters on a conjures the spirit of a man who delighted in set of nested squares, which paradox yet insisted on precision, who held he believed superseded the fiercely to the ancients while straining to under- overlapping circles champi- stand the world around him, and who wanted oned by British logician John most of all to stump everyone he knew. Writ- an algorithm that could give the date of every Venn. In Dodgson’s Game of Logic, published ing for work or pleasure, for children or adults, Easter Sunday until 2499. under his pen name to gain a wider audience, Wilson shows that Dodgson turned the most Sooner or later every child who knew Dodg- one can see some of the punctilious lunacy of sober of problems into child’s play. son would receive a brain teaser. Published in the Mad Hatter. Following chains of inference “Some perhaps may blame me for mixing collections with titles such as A Tangled Tale and he called ‘sillygisms’, he led readers from rea- together things grave and gay,” he wrote as Pillow Problems Thought Out During Sleepless sonable premises to conclusions such as “Babies Lewis Carroll in an insert to his nonsense poem Nights, many of these word problems required cannot manage crocodiles”, “No banker fails to The Hunting of the Snark. But, he continued, “I the dutiful application of algebra, trigonometry shun hyaenas” and “No bird in this aviary lives do not believe God means us thus to divide life or geometry. Some needed mere patience and on mince-pies”. These examples are perhaps less into two halves.” ■ common sense. One devious puzzle asked how interesting as logic than as the stirrings of a sys- Jascha Hoffman is a writer based in New York. many guests would come to a dinner party if a tematic kind of literature, also apparent in his e-mail: [email protected]

schools. He is also a popular speaker, offering The creationist controversy the public a grass-roots defence of good sci- ence education. Miller’s new book Only a Only a Theory: and the Battle candidates are discussing whether Earth is Theory is a tour of creationist misconceptions for America’s Soul really 6,000 years old as some Bible scholars about evolution, such as the one referred to by Kenneth R. Miller say, or whether they believe in evolution. in the book’s subtitle — a creationist pre- Viking: 2008. 256 pp. $25.95 Science and evolution have an advocate in dicted an inevitable victory in the Dover trial Kenneth Miller, one of North America’s emi- because evolution is “only a theory”. The book The United States has a big problem: although nent knights-errant, a scientist who is active is also a celebration of the power of evolution- we maintain a strong scientific establishment, in defending evolutionary theory in the con- ary theory to explain our existence. competitive with the rest of the world in many flict between evolution and