From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!zeppo!wheps!eagle!cw
Newsgroups: net.math
Title: Travelling Bees, John von Neumann, and Hilbert
Article-I.D.: eagle.456
Posted: Mon Aug  9 15:14:59 1982
Received: Tue Aug 10 03:39:29 1982
References: esquire.380



A recent article tells the story about the famous mathematician who
solved the travelling bee problem by instantaneously summing the infinite
series in his head.  The article claims the hero of the story was John
von Neumann; I had always heard it was David Hilbert (who was much
older).  Does anyone have documentation or is this another piece of
mathematical apocrypha?

Charles