This Catalan professor of mathematics has published two books in the Ariel publishing house –The Hypotenuse ClubYMath vitamins– which show that we can laugh with Archimedes, rave about the hidden beauty of square roots, or use statistics to enhance sexuality.
-In your opinion, what could be the most curious anecdote in the history of mathematics?
-Matusalem lived 969 years according to the Old Testament, where it is also said that he fathered his son Lamech at 187 years old and this in turn had Noah at 182, who was 600 years old when the Flood came and entered the Arca … If we add 187 + 182 + 600 the result is 969! So everything indicates that Methuselah died on the day of the Flood, and that brings us to a big question: Did Noah leave him out of the Ark and drowned?
-Can you comment on any other hidden mathematical message that has gone unnoticed?
-Thesecret numberof Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia temple is the12. All the proportions of the construction elements involve the divisors of 12, a figure that allows a very rich factorization and its division into halves and thirds. The philosophical explanation for why he used it is that 12 is the number of the apostles of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, Gaudí was a great geometer. It is a phenomenon that I am verifying, because I collaborate in a study on the exact form that the pinnacles of the towers of the temple that remain to be built must have.
-So mathematics is less boring than is usually believed?
-There is the success of sudoku … And if we go to a kindergarten, we will see that children love to play with numbers and with geometric figures. If they are lucky enough to be well guided in school, they will continue to like them. I admit that mathematics requires a greater effort than other subjects, because, for example, to know how to do second grade equations you have to know first grade equations, square roots and many other things. So actuallywe need more hours of math at school.
Jose Angel Martos
