Asked by LostInParadise (31914) March 12th, 2016
3 responses
“Great Question” (6)

Here is brief NPR discussion by Keith Devlin which suggests this and here is an article by Devlin that goes into more detail and includes a link to the article that he mentions.

Since Lewis Carroll was the pseudonym of the mathematician Charles Dodgson, the idea is not unreasonable. I think that if a satire was intended, it was a kind of inside joke among mathematicians. It is certainly not anything the general reader or even most mathematically inclined readers would pick up on. The humor in the story works perfectly fine without any mathematical reference.

Topics: recreation, literature, mathematics