The Tribune - Windows

Prince and the punter
Aditya Rishi

Caradan's formula

In 1545, Jerome Cardan printed Niccol`F2 Tartaglia's formula for finding the roots of a cubic equation. Cardan wormed the formula from Tartaglia, who swore he would never tell. — 'Mathematical Firsts — Who done It?', by Richard H. Williams and Roy D. Mazzagatti

AFTER losing the World Cup, when he is sitting sad and alone in his Johannesburg hotel room, Saurav Ganguly, Prince of Kolkata, receives an unexpected visitor: Ricky Ponting, who is also called 'punter' because he gambles on race horses. The punter has beaten the prince comprehensively only an hour ago, in the most important game of their lives.

"Cheers mate!" says Ricky, acting surprised, "What happened to you. You did well my man, but you knew all along that Australians were invincibles. Be happy; if you improve, maybe, you guys can still hold the runners-up trophy when we win the World Cup in 2007 as well. Even with all the lavish strokes of a Maharaja, you can't beat the horse sense of a punter."

Saurav shows no rush of blood; like he is sticking to his crease, cautious, not to step out and hit. Ricky (thinking that he has Saurav nicely set up for a yorker): "Speak up man, ever placed bets on horses, eh?"

"I can't bet on horses with you, Ricky. I don't want you to lose," says the prince. Ricky: "Sure you are joking, Saurav; I've bet on horses all my life, but there aren't any here, so, I can't show you." Saurav: "You forget, Ricky, that I am a prince. I have four horses here and I bet you can't put them in a barn." Saurav brings out a chessboard from his bag and four knights (his horses) to place on it.

Saurav: "Two horses may share a square. The 2 x 2 set of squares in the upper left corner of the chessboard is the barn. At each turn, each player must move all of the horses not yet in the barn. Horses move the way knights move in chess (straight one, then, diagonally one square). However, the horses can only go towards the barn. Two horses can occupy the same square at one time. Whoever puts the last horse in the barn loses."

The punter chuckles, but when he gets down to playing, he finds that it is not as easy. The prince wins handsomely and the punter returns to his room and cancels his victory bash. Meanwhile, the prince goes back to the book, On Numbers and Games by John Conway, he was reading before the punter came in. If wishes were horses. (Write at adityarishi99@yahoo.co.in)