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Mathematics Goes to the Movies
by Burkard Polster and Marty Ross
28:56
Grace Short (Hattie Jacques) is a maths teacher at Maudin Street School, which
is being visited by Alistaire Grigg (Leslie Phillips)
MISS SHORT: Right. We will now spend a quiet, pleasant lesson considering some
of the knottier problems presented by fractions and decimals. (Threateningly)
Or else. Page forty-five.
Mr. Grigg enters the room.
MR. GRIGG: Ah, Miss Short. Excuse me, won’t you? But I’d like to
conduct a little experiment on logic.
MISS SHORT: Certainly.
MR. GRIGG: Thank-you.
MISS SHORT (to the class): Pay attention to Mr. Grigg.
MR. GRIGG: Now, children. I’d like you to call out any two figure numbers.
Now, who’s first?
FIRST STUDENT: Twenty-seven.
MR. GRIGG: Twenty-seven. He writes 72 on the blackboard. Hmm?
SECOND STUDENT: Forty-nine.
MR. GRIGG: Forty-nine. He writes 94 on the blackboard. Looks around the room.
(To Miss Short) They’re puzzled.
MISS SHORT: So am I.
MR. GRIGG: Wait! The experiment never fails. Someone always questions my actions,
and that someone is the logical element in the group. You see?
THIRD STUDENT: Eighty-one.
MR. GRIGG (smiling): Eighty-one. He writes down 18.
FOURTH STUDENT: Sixty-five.
MR. GRIGG: Sixty-five? He writes down 56. Hmm?
FIFTH STUDENT: Firty-free.
MR. GRIGG: Thirty-three. He writes down 3, and then looks back, puzzled.
FIFTH STUDENT: Go on then? Muck about with that!