Halfway

The following is a mathematical capsule biography of Diophantus, he of the equations with integer solutions:

Here lies Diophantus, the wonder behold.

Through art algebraic, the stone tells how old:

‘God gave him his boyhood one-sixth of his life,

One twelfth more as youth while whiskers grew rife;

And then yet one-seventh ere marriage begun;

In five years there came a bouncing new son.

Alas, the dear child of master and sage

After attaining half the measure of his father’s life chill fate took him.

After consoling his fate by the science of numbers for four years, he ended his life.’

I’ve taken this from Wikipedia; it’s from a fifth- or sixth-century anthology called the Greek Anthology. Here’s the original text (in Greek). At least I think that’s the right bit – the only word I can read for sure is Διόφαντον Diophanton. That section of the Greek Anthology is full of riddles, including such mathematical puzzles as this one.

In modern notation, that poem can be translated into gives the Diophantine equation , which has the solution . Diophantus seems to be an obscure figure; MacTutor gives him the dates 200-284 but acknowledges that they might be off by a century or so and that the 84-year lifespan is entirely fictional.

Therefore the appropriate lifespan for a mathematician is 84 years.

Today I am half that age. I have it on good authority that I will learn the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything. Perhaps after two drinks, because my ability to legally drink is now itself able to drink legally.