Wednesday 8 December 2010

The Damscille Triangle

In secondary school maths, around the time we were taught Pythagoras's famous theorem, Mr Stark taught us the equally famous relationship between distance, speed and time.

He called it the Damscille Triangle, at least that's what I heard; I assumed Damscille was a Greek mathematician - a contemporary of Pythagoras, Archimedes and Euclid.

It wasn't until I was about fifteen that I suddenly realised that it was in fact a mnemonic: Damn Silly Triangle (distance, speed, time). Damscille was no more, and won't be found in any textbook or history book, but still has a special place in my heart.

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