Westward Ho! Musing on Mathematics and Mechanics

摘要

I am a huge fan of both sport and quiz shows on television. Combining the two, since childhood one of my favourite programmes has been the BBC's A Question of Sport. Most eagerly awaited each week was the round where some perfectly innocuous sporting action would unfold, only for the footage to freeze and the contestants asked: 'What happened next?' Bizarre goalkeeping errors in football provided a rich vein of material, as did comedy run-outs in cricket. But, in a sense, to the connoisseur, the innocuous back pass or the forward prod into the unguarded cover region become natural portents of disaster. The best ones involve the truly unexpected: the catastrophic failure of an everyday piece of equipment, the violent consequences of an unlucky ball bounce or, my personal favourite, the irresponsible behaviour of a member of the animal kingdom.