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Holmes + Moriarty = Mathematics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Thomas Dence*
Affiliation:
Ashland University, Ashland, OH 44839 USA

Extract

In the autumn of 2011 the movie Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows appeared (see [1]). It was a sequel to the Holmes movie from two years earlier. Unlike the first movie, A Game of Shadows Holmes' arch enemy Professor Moriarty featured more prominently than Holmes himself.

One scene, in particular, has Holmes sizing up his opponent by making a visit to Moriarty at his university office. But in the background sits Moriarty's blackboard, filled completely with mathematical equations, symbols, drawings, and formulas. One of these deserves our special attention.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 2014

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References

1. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Guy Ritchie, Warner Brothers, (2011).Google Scholar
2. Rennison, Nick, Sherlock Holmes: The unauthorized biography, Grove Press, New York (2005) pp. 5978.Google Scholar
3. Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, His last bow, Berkley Publishing Corporation (1944) pp. 80109.Google Scholar
4. Goriely, Alain and Moulton, Derek, The mathematics behind Sherlock Holmes: A game of shadows, SIAM News, 45 (April 2012).Google Scholar