It is amazing how ancient and universal some customs can be.

In the 1890s archaeologists unearthed cuneiform tablets which show laughing figures with full moon beside them which have been interpreted as an ancient mode of observing the equivalent of a day when people made fun of one another.

In one of his Monologues Plato says that the people of Thales used to set aside a date for poking fun at one another. They called the day Morosimera.

In the Mityopanishad of Sanskrit literature we read: eka divas sakala varsha sarva loka pari haamana: One day every year the whole world is a joke.

The Latin poet Romulus Iocus wrote: ridere secundum mensem sanus est: To laugh in the second month (April) is healthy.

According to Rabbi Ilan Nafta, in Hebrew Gematria (number mysticism) the letters the second month Iyar has the same number as the word for teasing.

In the medieval Arab world, the philosopher Ibn Bei Ku'f declared that laughing at the folly of others is a sign of intelligence.

In the 15th century, Saint Scurra is said to have noted that the angels in Heaven periodically laugh at the fools on earth.

We read in the Divino Inferno: Danar si tolse e lasciollo di piano, e tutti divengono sciocci: They took their gold and smoothly left them off, and they all became fools.

The French poet Bois de Leaux wrote: Nous sommes tous fous, un jour ou un autre: We are all fools, one day or another.

In a play by the Dutch writer Mathiaas Vendel we read: Zelfs de verstandigen worden zot op een dag: Even the wise become fools one day.

Juan Pico said: Cada uno es loco, un dia cada anyo: One day each year we all are fools.

And who can forget the words of the jester in Shakespeare's Henry VI:

In the stress and strain that flesh is heir to, Amidst the pain and pang that fleeing life doth impose, None is spared, Neither lord nor serf, priest nor laity, Aye, not even the Rex of the Realm. Wherefore, with wisdom derived from keen council, The king of Merry England hath made This the first day of bright April When flowers bloom and birds coo, Yes, the gracious sovereign of us all, Hath declared this as the day When all and the brother of all May, with words and acts and tricks, Make mockery and conjure up events To mislead, delude or fool friends and family, And so treat even the wise of all the world, if no harm be done or meant.

Schilling put it thus: Heute mussen wir wachsam sein, nicht glauben was wir hoeren und lesen: Today we must be watchful, not believe what we hear or read.

And the Tamil philosopher says: innikku yaaraiyum nambaathey: Trust no one today.

Indeed, except for this line and the previous one, not one statement in all that I have written above is true. Happy April Fool's Day!

FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE

She was way ahead of her times: In the closing decades of the 18th century this woman was daring enough to study mathematics. Her father dissuaded her from dabbling in numbers, kept her room dark and cold at night so she wouldn't be playing with factors and fractions, and resorted to other discouraging tactics, but to little avail.

She kept exploring the abstract realm of mathematics, taught herself differential equations, and even sent papers on the subject to such stars as Gauss, Legendre and Lagrange, and they were greatly impressed. Of course understood how scandalous it would be if the great thinkers knew it was a woman who was writing on technical mathematics, so she assumed the pen-name of Leblanc in her correspondence with the great.

She tackled some tough problems in number theory: including aspects of the famous Fermat's Last Theorem.

She was also bold enough to write to General Pernety of France during the Franco-German confrontation, asking for the safety of the great mathematician Gauss.

Her interest was not simply in pure mathematics. She was one of the first to explore the mathematical aspects of vibrating membranes. She was inspired to look into this topic by the experimental demonstrations of E. Chladni who put into evidence sand patterns on struck drum-heads. She in turn inspired Lagrange in his own formulation of the problem. In this context she defined the notion of mean curvature of a surface. She did work in the theory of elasticity. She submitted her papers to the French Academy of Sciences anonymously, for one did not normally receive papers from members of the in those days. Her name was Sophie Germaine (born: 1 April 1776).

The eminent mathematician Gauss was so taken by Ms Germaine's work that he stated in a letter: "But when a person of the sex which, according to our customs and prejudices, must encounter infinitely more difficulties than men to familiarize herself with these thorny researches, succeeds nevertheless in surmounting these obstacles and penetrating the most obscure parts of them, then without doubt she must have the noblest courage, quite extraordinary talents and a superior genius."

While playing with numbers she discovered that the following:

If we double the prime number 3 and add one (2x3 + 1) we get 7, which is also a prime.

But if we do this to the prime 13, we get 27 which is not a prime.

In other words, only some primes have the property that 2P + 1 is also a prime.

Primes numbers P with the property that 2P + 1 is also a prime are called Sophie Germaine primes.

Some Sophie Germaine primes are even more interesting, like 191: This is a palindromic number (reads the same both ways), and 2x191 + 1 = 389 is also palindromic.

Another such palindromic Sohie Germaine pair is given by:

9493939493 & 78987878987.

Mathematicians have detected 71 such pairs with 11 or less digits.

Like human beings, every number is unique in some way. Like human beings again, some display unusual characteristics. There is poetry and magic in the world of numbers. Some minds are able to read that poetry and elucidate that magic in ways that seem beyond the reach of ordinary mortals. Sophie Germaine had such a mind. A remarkable person she was, intelligent and gifted, but also bold and persevering. Her life and work brought credit to womanhood, but also revealed the capacity of the human spirit.

V. V. Raman

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Published   2002.04.02