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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site lsuc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!lsuc!msb
From: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Subject: Re: hunting lions
Message-ID: <495@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Mar-85 17:29:16 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.495
Posted: Sat Mar  9 17:29:16 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 9-Mar-85 20:35:56 EST
References: <234@cmu-cs-gandalf.ARPA>
Reply-To: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 17
Summary: credit


"A Contribution to the Mathematical Theory of Big Game Hunting"
was originally published in the American Mathematical Monthly, 45, 446,
in 1938.  The author is given as "H. Petard, Princeton, N.J." (an obvious
pseudonym, of course).  The article's age is seen in the use of the term
"the Companion of Sirius" for "a white dwarf star" (a neutron star would work
better in this method anyway; you wouldn't need as much of it).

It was reprinted in the excellent book "A Random Walk in Science", a collection
of humorous and/or thought-provoking short articles, compiled by R.L.Weber
and edited by E.Mendoza, published 1973, copyright The Institute of Physics.

Incidentally, the posted joke includes only part of the original article.
Methods omitted include the Hilbert, or axiomatic, method; the Dirac method;
and the thermodynamical method.

Mark Brader