A themed puzzle from Pasquale to mark the 60th anniversary of the death of the person referred to in the preamble.
All the across clues were undefined; all except 13 across turned out to be (more or less) famous mathematicians. Perhaps in compensation, the down clues were perhaps easier than might be expected for a Pasquale puzzle. Many of the names were unfamiliar to me, but all can be found in the list on this page (although Möbius is only bubbling under) except for Venn (who was more of a philosopher than a mathematician) and Bessel. Hats off to Pasquale for managing to include so many names without having to resort to really obscure words for the down answers.
Beermagnet has pointed out to me that the Don (as Quixote) also compiled the same day’s Independent prize crossword (see Beermagnet’s blog of the puzzle): mathematicians may care to calculate what the odds of that coincidence were.
| Across | ||
| 5 | CANTOR | Worker in firm first to retire (6) |
| ANT in CO, R(etire). | ||
| 6 | MOBIUS | Crowd is hanging round front of university (6) |
| MOB, U in IS. | ||
| 9 | GALOIS | I love being embraced by slovenly woman, rolling over (6) |
| I 0 in SLAG (rev). | ||
| 10 | HAMILTON | Expression of surprise when meeting poet? (8) |
| HA! MILTON. I toyed with the thought that there might be a mathematician called HOMOTION, but was disappointed. | ||
| 11 | VENN | Cleric’s title put in front of name (4) |
| VEN(erable) N. | ||
| 12 | PYTHAGORAS | Cleese, Idle et al, legless around old marketplace (10) |
| AGORA in PYTH(on)S (on = leg in cricket terminology). | ||
| 13 | MATHEMATICS | Dull chemist in difficulty penning article (11) |
| MAT (more commonly matt), A in *CHEMIST. | ||
| 18 | DIOPHANTUS | Host unpaid for working (10) |
| *(HOST UNPAID). | ||
| 21 | ABEL | Old tower losing its facing (4) |
| (B)ABEL. | ||
| 22 | LEGENDRE | Very famous bunch of engineers (8) |
| LEGEND, RE. | ||
| 23 | NEWTON | The latest fashion (6) |
| NEW TON. | ||
| 24 | TURING | On a trip missing nothing (6) |
| T(o)URING. The inspiration for the theme of the puzzle. | ||
| 25 | BESSEL | Not completely happy, learner being pushed to the back (6) |
| BLESSE(d), with the L at the end. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | INSOMNIA | Home thus dealt with psychosis, removing a nightly problem? (8) |
| IN SO M(a)NIA. | ||
| 2 | GOSSIP | Soak up drink and talk too freely? (6) |
| SOG (rev), SIP. | ||
| 3 | WORM CAST | Little pile of soil? Briefly come out with straw (4,4) |
| *(COM, STRAW). As featured in Alys Fowler’s column in the Weekend magazine. | ||
| 4 | RIALTO | On-the-up Irish singer in Italian city district (6) |
| IR(rev), ALTO. | ||
| 5 | COAXED | Cable meeting with journalist is flattered (6) |
| COAX, ED. | ||
| 7 | SLOGAN | It’s hard work getting a new set of punchy words (6) |
| SLOG, A N. | ||
| 8 | WHITE MATTER | Theme worked out with art and wit? Brainy stuff (5,6) |
| *(THEME ART WIT). Perhaps more commonly referred to as grey matter, but no matter. | ||
| 14 | HOARDING | Keeping a facility for large-scale ads (8) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 15 | CRABWISE | Around sailor crew is moving sideways (8) |
| AB in *(CREW IS). | ||
| 16 | DIVEST | Strip club of sleazy nature on street (6) |
| DIVE ST. | ||
| 17 | RECOIL | Start to find “black gold” under playing field (6) |
| REC(reation ground), OIL. | ||
| 19 | POETRY | Favourite lines about love in this, maybe? (6) |
| 0 in PET, R(ailwa)Y. | ||
| 20 | SUNSET | Yellow orb over county incompletely visible — as it becomes this? (6) |
*anagram
Thanks bridgesong. When Alan Turing revealed himself quite readily I searched in vain for somewhere to fit in Enigma, Ultra and Bletchley. Solving then became much more difficult even when Pythagoras and Hamilton pointed the way and I only got there in the end by grace of Google. Bessel and Venn could be guessed with the crossing letters but, like you, I could not find them in any list of prominent mathematicians which is where I had to go to confirm or identify most of the others. My education continues.
I’m not sure about 20 either. I toyed with SUNLIT for a while but concluded Dorset would be half visible.
The annotated solution shows we were both wrong about 20. I did consider SUNKEN but didn’t think it really fitted.
Surely 20 is SUNKEN(t), which does fit the wordplay.
An excellent puzzle, though as a non-mathematician I must confess to seeking help with some of the across chaps.
Biggles A: we crossed! The more I look at 20, the cleverer it seems, but certainly not an easy solve.
For years I’ve been looking forward to the mathematics-related theme puzzle, and here it was! I would have considered Bessel more of a physicist, but it was good to encounter the names of so many people whose theorems I’ve used. Now I can die happy (although not for a long time yet, I hope)!
Thanks bridgesong. 6A and 12A early on pointed to mathematicians, and sure enough I only knew one other. It was a good test to complete this with resort to Google limited only to verifying hypotheses: except 25A at the very end. I liked WORM CAST; in fact I liked all of it, so thanks Pasquale.
Thanks to bridgesong for the blog.
You explained why my answer of PYTHAGORAS was correct. I had been unable to explain why ‘on’ should be omitted from pythons. 🙁
This was hard work for me: like others here I had to look at a list of mathematicians and did not find everybody.
Thanks, bridgesong, and special thanks to Pasquale for a puzzle which went a little way to countering the arts bias in cryptics. We solvers are routinely expected to know the names and works of writers, painters, musicians and other ‘creatives’, so it’s fair enough to have a puzzle with mathematicians’ names as the theme. Can we now expect one on the works of mathematicians? Fermat’s Last Theorem, the Riemann Hypothesis or the Poincaré Conjecture anyone? Thought not. 🙂
Many thanks Bridgesong & Pasquale.
This was very enjoyable and I even entered SUNKEN @ 20d.
At a first glance of the blog, I thought, ‘Oh dear!’ but, thanks to Biggles A @ 2, Modesty now forbids my celebrating too loudly – in public at least.
So also Very Many Thanks to Biggles A!
Biggles A and others, thanks for pointing out my error at 20 dn. I have now updated the blog, without removing the evidence of my blunder. I should have realised that there had to be a better answer and should have checked the annotated solution (I posted the blog last Sunday).
I should also have pointed out that it was the Don’s birthday last week, which may explain why he was able to have puzzles in both the Guardian and the Indy on the same day. Many happy returns, Don!
Well I suppose we could have expected an easy Prize as we had been spoiled with 3 corkers during the week.
24A very easily gave the person who died so the theme was very likely computing or mathematics.
The first across, 5A, was a write in so it was mathematics. The only question now was where all the acrosses mathematicians? (Barring the one defining the link). They were.
Pretty straightforward from then on. My only entertainment was Diophantus. I had to give a public lecture on Diophantine Equations and Primes at University. How little I remember of the topic is astonishing. Even more astonishing is just how little I actually knew when I gave the lecture. 😉
I too failed to get SUNKEN and also plumped for SUNSET. But to be honest the puzzle was so lacklustre that I was just trying to get to the end.
Dancing Ant @5
Are you thinking of the engineer Bessemer? Bessel was definitely a mathematician and astronomer. Did some work on differential equations and famous for the Bessel functions.
Thanks to bridgesong and Pasquale
Got Turing, mathematics and Newton quickly (though had to search to find that ton is fashion). Then the rest followed. sunken was last in as I thought it was sunset for a while. First time I’ve done a crossword in a couple of hours. I did know all of the mathematicians names though. To submit this had to work out 8×9. Seems appropriate.
Thanks all
As a pseudo mathematician enjoyable and quite straightforward…..except I never managed ‘Bessel’, a completely new name to me.
I didn’t find this as dull as some of you seem to have done, and I thought it was a good mental workout. I was especially pleased to have got DIOPHANTUS, LEGENDRE and GALOIS from the wordplay because I had never heard of them. However, I failed with an unparsed WESSEL at 25ac (Caspar Wessel, a Norwegian-Danish mathematician and cartographer, 1745-1818). Before I resorted to aids to find Wessel my original entry at 25ac was “Peasel”, which fitted the wordplay but had the distinct disadvantage of not being a mathematician, although it is a genuine surname. I’d never heard of BESSEL and blessed=happy just didn’t occur to me.
+1 for the maths theme.
I was determined to do this without help. Almost made it, but somehow failed to get VENN.
Expected to see Riemann since Alan Turing built a machine to find zeros of the zeta function.
I too entered sunset as sun and conclusion to Somerset.
Sunken is much better I suppose but similar logic in both cases as the clue says ” incomplete ” and not for example ” tailless “
Thanks Bridgesong,
I enjoyed this very much and did not find it easy. There again, where have all the easy grids gone.
The puzzle becomes twice as difficult without most of the starting letters. My thinking on 20d was
exactly the same as yours Bridgesong and Kent never occurred to me. I also failed on LEGENDRE who I’ve never
heard of. Just never thought of ‘legend’. A main part of puzzle solving is thinking of a particular word and if
it won’t come then you are sunk or sunken even. I particularly liked MOBIUS and DIVEST. Many thanks to The Don
and belated happy birthday.
PS There is a very interesting Wiki entry for William Rowan Hamilton.
I enjoyed this very much as the ‘theme’ revealed itself quite soon. I got SUNKEN but failed with 25ac. All I could come up with was PEASEL but never thought of ‘Blessed’ as happy. Obviously couldn’t find a mathematician of that name and no other revealed himself so it remained unfilled.
When I saw the special instructions I was expecting a tough challenge, but once TURING and PYTHAGORAS were in the rest of the mathematicians fell out fairly easily and I think the last couple in were down clues. A slightly odd collection of names, but still an achievement to fill the grid that way without making it too difficult.
Thanks to bridgesong and Pasquale
I enjoyed this, and it’s nice to see a theme like this. I had more trouble with the down clues than the mathematicians, once I got Turing and Cantor and realised what was going on. Thanks for explaining some of the parsing, bridgesong, especially Rialto, which escaped me. Although it didn’t escape me as much as sunken; chalk up one more sunset here. My unknown mathematician was Galois, but there the rather nice wordplay was clear enough.. (My wife was amazed that someone with a physics background hadn’t heard of Galois, whose life seems to have been quite lively and whose death following a duel remains controversial – his Wikipedia entry is worth a look.) Thanks for the fun, Pasquale.
R_c_a_d @16
Yes perhaps one would have expected a Riemann concection. But as another poster has pointed out the list of Mathematicians appears to be pretty random. I guess Pasquale just went to his “Boys Own” list of mathematicians and picked out names that fitted into the grid without a thought for their connection with AMT! (Other than being mathematicians of course!)
As far as I know Turing never actually finished the build of his Zeta machine as it was shelved at the beginning of the war. He did however derive the “Turing method for computational analysis of the zeta function” which is still the method used today by programs looking for that elusive zero “off the line”.
Thanks Pasquale and Bridgesong. As Median says @ 8, it’s nice to move away from the arts and humanities for the occasional puzzle.
I don’t think I agree with Bridgesong about Venn being a philosopher. Venn was a logician, and logic is a discipline within mathematics, ergo Venn is a mathematician. I’m sure readers will be able to draw a very nice Venn diagram for the previous sentence.
There seems to be quite a number of comments on Riemann, but that would have required a different grid. All of the lights on this one are even numbered in length, so Riemann and many others (Gauss, Euler, Plato etc) never had a chance. It clearly helps to have something named after you (VENN, MOBIUS, BESSEL) – to me the least familiar names were LEGENDRE and DIOPHANTUS but I could just be showing my ignorance. Also agree with dunsscotus @23 – Pythagoras and Newton didn’t restrict themselves to mathematics either…
Sorry – not quite all the lights – I forgot the two 11-letter ones, but all of the ones used for the names were even!
Thanks, all, for your comments. I’m not a mathematician, so I bow to those whose knowledge is not derived from Wikipedia on these issues. In fact, reading the entry on Venn more closely, I see that dunsscotus @23 is correct and (as Pasquale was no doubt aware) Venn can indeed be properly classified as a mathematician.
Thanks Pasquale, bridgesong and all.
Sue and I enjoyed this over a few drinks. I was reminded of how studying Bessel’s work explains why, unlike a vibrating string, an oscillating drum skin does not generally produce a definite pitch, and that’s something I’d not thought about for a while.
As for unlikely coincidences, since there’s a vast number of possible ones, they’ll happen all the time.
Cheers again.
A common feature of all the mathematicians used is that their names are used attributively, although few who have not studied the subject would not be aware of all of them.
e.g. for 21ac.: What’s purple and commutes? An abelian grape!