"DRIVE faster! This horrible thing is chasing us," says David Coulthard to Michael Schumacher, while Jacques Villenueve and Mika Hakkinen watch the object in horror. "I have beaten my own world speed record. This 1940 Rolls Royce cannot go any faster than this," says the world champion of Formula 1 car racing.

"Top four of Formula 1 disappear with car on race eve" Banner headlines like this shake the world out of its bed the next morning. A month after this, another banner headline makes everyone drop their coffee cups on their breakfast tables — "Champs return, but without their memories"

"Today, the top four men of motor sport found themselves on the same highway from where they had disappeared a month ago. They don’t remember who took them away and why," Mika Hakkinen reads out the news report to the other three men. "I don’t understand how can there be a month between yesterday and today," says Jacques. "That is because yesterday was a month ago," says Michael and puts the previous month’s newspaper, with their pictures and the news of the disappearance on page 1, before everyone. After they have stared at each other for a while, David decides to break the silence. "Gentlemen, there is only one person who can solve this mystery," he says. "Who is he?" say all. "Dr P.C. Sorcar of Calcutta," says David.

Sorcar’s dark chamber: "Tell me once more, what did you find in your pockets after you opened your eyes on the highway again," says Sorcar. "This," say the drivers and produce four slips, three of which have equations written on these. Sorcar notices that the equations are AB+C=4; BC+A=4; and CA+B=4. Mika’s slip, however, has this written on it — "Real numbers, find all three sets". Sorcar says, "Friends, I believe that someone has given you three real numbers. If you multiply two of these and add the third to the result, you always get 4, no matter how you do it. You have been asked to find all three possibilities for such set of numbers. The answer might help you fill the gaps in your memories," "All this is an alien language to us; nothing scares us like mathematics," say the drivers. "Then, the only solution left is hypnosis," says Sorcar and commands all four to lie on couches.

Sorcar: "Sleep... and go back into your past... a month back. What do you see?" Drivers: "A spaceship." "Where?" "On the road." "What happens next?" "Aliens! They abduct us, some of them flash equations before our eyes." "What equations?" "The ones written on the slips." "What next?" "They ask us to solve these. Subtracting the first two equations gives us (A-C) (B-1)=0, so either A=C or B=1. If B=1, A+C=4 and AC=3; solving these gives us the set { 1, 1, 3} . If B is not 1, we can assume that A and C are not 1, so, we get A=B=C. This gives A²+A=4; solving this shows all three numbers to be either (k-1)/2 or (-k-1)/2, where k is the square root of 17. These are the other two possibilities for such set of numbers." "Good! Now, wake up."

After the drivers hear the recording of their hypnosis session, Dr Sorcar says, "Friends, aliens spoke to you in mathematics because they wanted to tell you that mathematics was not an alien language, but a universal one. You could solve the equation in your subconscious mind because you were not scared of it. Each one of us runs away from this spaceship called mathematics because it seems scary, whereas, it is full of surprises and untold beauty."

— Aditya Rishi