About the Author:

Prof. Bancroft H. Brown has taught mathematics at Dartmouth since 1922 and during the past 35 years has continually helped to make things both "new" and lively. He is a prime example of the fact that full professorial rank doesn't necessarily induce one to lighten his foot on the accelerator.

As a teacher, Professor Brown has the gift of making mathematics a vastly interesting subject. He is famous for his imaginative and light- hearted examinations, which are deceptive in the amount of straight thinking they require. Mathematics, in his view, is simply a method of thinking devised by humans to fit special situations.

As a specialist in the mathematics of probability, Professor Brown has done extracurricular research in crap-shooting, horse racing and other forms of gambling. His lecture, "You Can't Win," has been popular with Dartmouth alumni; and along with his math textbooks he has to his credit a learned monograph entitled "A New Pair of Amicable Numbers."

The author and the adjective "new" as used in his article seem to go together just as naturally, and profitably, as seven and eleven.