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ESSENTIALS OF
MATHEMATICAL
THINKING

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TEXTBOOKS in MATHEMATICS

ESSENTIALS OF
MATHEMATICAL
THINKING

Steven G. Krantz

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CRC Press
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To the memory of Ed Nelson.

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Table of Contents

Preface xv

1 First Thoughts 1
1.1 What Is Mathematical Thinking? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 How Does Mathematics Differ from Other Disciplines? . . . . 2
1.3 A Sample Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2 Diverse Mathematical Thoughts 5

2.1 A Fraction of the Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 How to Swindle on the Stock Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3 The Bible Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.4 Winning on a Game Show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.5 Cutting the Cake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.6 A Lesson in Map Coloring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.6.1 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.6.2 Modern Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.6.3 Denouement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.7 The Complexity of Songs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.8 Bertrand’s Paradox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

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x TABLE OF CONTENTS

3 Strategy 49
3.1 It’s All in the Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2 See and Say . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.3 The Ponzi Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.4 Ham Sandwich Theorems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

4 Focus 61
4.1 The Erdős Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.2 Time Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.3 Days of the Week . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

5 Science 69
5.1 A Belt for the Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.2 Your Next Breath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.3 A Hairy Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.4 The Motions of the Planets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5.5 How Big Is Big Data? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

6 Counting 85
6.1 Funny Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
6.2 The Pigeon Flew the Coop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
6.3 Conditional Probability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6.4 Benford’s Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
6.5 Puzzling Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

7 Games 109
7.1 How to Count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
7.2 How to Beat the Lottery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
7.3 The Eudaemonic Pie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
7.4 A Dicey Bet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

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TABLE OF CONTENTS xi

7.5 The Game of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

7.6 The Tower of Hanoi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

8 Geometry 131
8.1 Thoughts of Pythagoras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
8.2 Symmetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
8.3 Buffon’s Needle Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
8.4 Euler’s Formula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
8.5 Sphere Packing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
8.6 The Platonic Solids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
8.7 Heron’s Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
8.8 A Little Geometric Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

9 Practical Matters 165

9.1 Strangers on a Plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
9.2 You’ve Got My Vote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
9.2.1 The Plurality System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
9.2.2 The Hare System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
9.2.3 The Borda Count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
9.2.4 Cumulative Voting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
9.2.5 Approval Voting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
9.2.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
9.3 Take Your Pill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
9.4 Geometric Analysis and Facial Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
9.4.1 Geometry and Facial Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
9.4.2 Conformal Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
9.4.3 Wavelets and Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
9.4.4 Summary Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
9.5 Beware the Raven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

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xii TABLE OF CONTENTS

9.6 The Prisoner’s Dilemma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

9.7 The Eyes Have It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
9.8 A Sure Bet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
9.9 Hilbert’s Hotel Infinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

10 Breaking the Code 211

10.1 Alan Turing and Cryptography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
10.1.1 Background on Alan Turing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
10.1.2 The Turing Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
10.1.3 What Is Cryptography? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
10.1.4 Encryption by Way of Affine Transformations . . . . . 221
10.1.5 Digraph Transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
10.2 RSA Encryption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
10.2.1 Basics and Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
10.2.2 Preparation for RSA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
10.2.3 Modular Arithmetic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
10.2.4 Relatively Prime Integers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
10.2.5 The RSA System Enunciated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
10.2.6 The RSA Encryption System Explicated . . . . . . . . 240

11 Discrete Problems 243

11.1 Far-Reaching Dominoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
11.2 Surreal Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
11.3 A Problem with Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
11.4 Euler’s Bridges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
11.5 Scheduling Sporting Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

12 Advanced Ideas 269

12.1 Searching on Google . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
12.1.1 The Mathematics of a Google Search . . . . . . . . . . 269

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TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii

12.1.2 The Directed Web Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

12.1.3 Passage to the Web HyperLink Matrix . . . . . . . . . 270
12.1.4 A Fix for Dangling Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
12.1.5 The Ultimate Google Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
12.2 A Needle Problem of Kakeya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
12.3 Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
12.4 Archimedes and the Area of a Circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
12.4.1 The Genius of Archimedes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
12.4.2 Archimedes’s Calculation of the Area of a Circle . . . . 304

13 Concluding Remarks 319

13.1 The Final Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

References 321

Index 327

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Preface

It is becoming increasingly clear that mathematical thinking is essential to

understanding the world around us. Police tell us that most crimes these
days are committed with electronic devices (usually computers). Many if
not most medical procedures are now robotically assisted. The carburation
system of a modern automobile is all electronic. Geometric visualization is
one of the most important aspects of modern technology.
And it is plain that the thinking behind all of the technology described in
the last paragraph is mathematical. The Google search engine is based on a
mathematical algorithm. Not just logic, but analysis and combinatorics and
geometry and many other ideas from the mathematical sciences are critical
parts of our world.
A college education consists of learning different modes of discourse. Ev-
ery modern student should thus have some exposure to mathematical dis-
course. Whether or not the student has any intention of working in the
mathematical sciences, he/she will need these modes of thought to survive
in the modern marketplace.
And learning mathematical thought does not have be dry, desultory, and
boring. It can be fun and exciting and challenging (in a productive fashion).
It can relate to things that are meaningful to students—such as the paradigm
behind a Google search, or the means by which a music CD is encoded, or
the RSA encryption algorithm. In a course on mathematical thinking the
student will obviously learn some mathematical skills, but he/she will also
gain critical thinking skills. These are valuable life tools.
This book may be thought of as a book for nonmathematicians taking

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xvi PREFACE

a mathematics course that is a breadth requirement for an undergraduate

degree. Thus it has minimal mathematical prerequisites. It has very few
equations. It has lots of pictures and lots of explanation. It is driven by ex-
amples. But those examples will lead students down new paths, and acquaint
them with new paradigms of thought. They will stimulate and provoke and
encourage. At the end of this journey, the student should feel that he/she
has a new set of tools for attacking a variety of problems and situations.
There should be a profound feeling of satisfaction.
A very important part of learning mathematical thinking is learning to
write mathematics. The process of internalizing an idea and the process
of figuring out how to write it down are closely linked. We exploit this
observation by supplying on-the-fly exercises that force the student to write
out an answer. Sometimes, when it is appropriate and not burdensome, we
ask the student to provide a demonstration or a reason for a mathematical
idea. We also ask the student to draw pictures.
The exercises in this book are of several types: (a) there are drill exer-
cises, just as a means of getting students started in a topic, (b) there are
more challenging problems that will require the student to really digest the
key ideas, and (c) each section ends with an open-ended problem that will
encourage students to talk to each other and collaborate.
The material in the first nine chapters of the book should be accessible
to a broad audience with minimal background in mathematics. The last
three chapters are more sophisticated. All readers will want to dip into these
chapters, but only readers with some mathematical background will be able
to work through the examples in any detail. In this way, we have been able to
make the book more open-ended and appealing to a diverse group of readers
with many needs and interests.
It is a pleasure to thank Lynn Apfel and Tim Davis for helpful remarks
and suggestions for many different parts of this book. I thank the many fine
reviewers that Taylor & Francis engaged to criticize my book. As always, my
editor Robert Ross was supportive and proactive in the production of this
book.

Steven G. Krantz
St. Louis, Missouri

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Chapter 1

First Thoughts

1.1 What Is Mathematical Thinking?

It is natural to wonder how mathematical thought differs from other modes

of cogitation. Does mathematical thought require special skills and special
training? Does one need to work at it in the same way that one works to
learn to play the piano? Does one need to practice? Does one require a
teacher?
This book will show you that you can learn mathematical thought—by
yourself—as you enjoy reading along. It will pose questions and set up puzzles
and help you learn how to answer them. It will teach you to draw pictures
and then to analyze those pictures in order to elicit the solution of a problem.
It will teach you to think by analogy. It will teach you how to generate your
own ideas.
The chief feature of mathematical thinking is that it is logical. Certainly
there is room for intuition in mathematics, and even room for guessing. But,
in the end, we understand a mathematical situation and/or solve a problem
by being very logical. Logic makes the process dependable and reproducible.
It shows that what we are producing is a verifiable truth.

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2 CHAPTER 1. FIRST THOUGHTS

1.2 How Does Mathematics Differ from Other

Disciplines?
Mathematics is not like biology or physics or chemistry. A mathematician
does not work in a laboratory. A mathematician does not attempt to describe
and understand the world around us. A mathematician does not (at least
not directly) respond to nature.
A mathematician deals with ideas. He/she may use a computer to help
analyze those ideas. The mathematician may even build a physical model
to aid in thinking. But, in the end, a solution to a mathematical problem
comes from pure thought.
And, following the model set by Euclid of Alexandria 2500 years ago, our
thoughts follow rather strict rules. We set up a collection of definitions (of
terminology and ideas), then we record certain axioms (these are the “rules
of the game”), and finally we derive new truths from those axioms using rules
of logic.
Along the way we may do a considerable amount of calculating. We may
work many examples. We may “try” a number of different things. But, when
the situation is sorted out and understood and the solution to the problem
is well in hand, then we record it once and for all following the logical model
described in the last paragraph.

1.3 A Sample Problem

Our sample problem will be analyzed using mathematical-style thinking. But
it will not involve equations and it will not involve calculations. It will just
involve logic. But that is the essence of mathematics.

Problem 1.1 You are on an island that is populated by two types of people:
truth tellers and liars. See Figure 1.1. When asked a Yes–No question, a
truth teller always tells the truth and a liar always lies. There is no visual
method for telling a truth teller from a liar. What single question could you
ask anyone that you meet on the island to determine whether that person is
a truth teller or a liar?

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1.3. A SAMPLE PROBLEM 3

Figure 1.1: A Liar and a Truth Teller.

Solution: If you ask a direct question such as “Are you a truth teller?”
then a truth teller will answer “Yes” and a liar (who must lie) will also answer
“Yes.” You will get a similar result if you ask “Are you a liar?” Thus an
elementary, direct question provides no basis for differentiation.
Therefore a compound question, such as a conditional, or an “or” ques-
tion, or an “and” question is called for. One of the things that we learn in
a basic logic course is that any question that is of one of these three types
can be reformulated as a question of any one of the other three types (see
[KRA1]). We concentrate on formulating an “if-then” question that will do
the job.
The question that we formulate could be of the form “If it is raining then
what would you say to . . . ” or “If you are a Doctor of Letters then what
would be your answer to . . . .” However it is clear that these conditions have
nothing to do with the matter at hand.
Probably more relevant would be a question of the form “If you were a
truth teller then what would you say to . . . .” Likewise the concluding part
of the question ought to have something to do with the problem that we are
trying to solve. We now try the question

If you are a truth teller then how would you answer the
question, “Are you a liar?”

Now we analyze how the two different types of island inhabitants would
answer this question.
Obviously a truth teller would answer the question “Are you a liar?” by
saying “No.” If you pose the displayed question to a truth teller, then he
will report truthfully on the answer just given, so he/she will say “No.”

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4 CHAPTER 1. FIRST THOUGHTS

A liar can think just as clearly as a truth teller. He/she also knows that
a truth teller, if asked whether he/she is a liar, will say “No.” But the liar
must lie. So he/she will say “Yes.”
Thus we have found a question to which a truth teller will always answer
“No” and a liar will always answer “Yes.” This certainly gives a means for
differentiating truth tellers from liars, and answers our question.

Exercise: Consider an island with truth tellers, liars, and equivocal people.
Can you cook up a question that will enable you to distinguish these three
types of people?
Exercise: There are two identical doors. Behind one door is the passage to
heaven. Behind the other door is the passage to hell. In front of each door
is a guard. One of these guards is a truth teller and one of the guards is a
liar. You cannot tell visually which is which. What question can you ask
one of the guards to determine which door is which? [This question is due
to Raymond Smullyan.]

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Chapter 2

Diverse Mathematical
Thoughts

2.1 A Fraction of the Time

The UCLA campus is located in Westwood, California. Westwood is one of

the prime real estate locations in Southern California. Few faculty can afford
to live in Westwood. Westwood Village, adjacent to the campus, is the home
of a number of upscale boutiques and cafes and shops. And also to a branch
of the Bank of America. Every Spring, Bank of America puts an ad in the
UCLA student paper encouraging students to apply for a job at B of A. And
this ad always includes a footnote that says, “Must be able to add fractions.”
Ahem. Well, it is a sad but true fact—which if you have ever taught
mathematics you know all too well—that students have trouble adding frac-
tions. Americans in general have trouble with fractions. Professionals who
spend their time thinking about K–12 education will tell you that teaching
fractions is a big problem. The true nature of this problem is reflected in the
following tale of the burger wars.
There has been a “burger war” going on in the United States for several
decades now. McDonald’s is battling it out with Burger King, Wendy’s, A
& W Rootbeer, and several other chains. They all want your burger dollar.
And they are willing to resort to a bizarre variety of ploys to get it.
One of the most vivid arithmetic failings displayed by Americans occurred

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6 CHAPTER 2. DIVERSE MATHEMATICAL THOUGHTS

in the early 1980s, when the A & W restaurant chain released a new ham-
burger to rival the McDonald’s Quarter Pounder. With a third-pound of
beef, the A& W burger had more meat than the Quarter Pounder; in taste
tests, customers preferred A & W’s burger. And it was the same price. A
lavish A & W television and radio marketing campaign cited these bene-
fits. Yet, instead of leaping at the great value, customers snubbed it. Only
when the company held customer focus groups did it become clear why. The
Third Pounder presented the American public with a test in fractions. And
we failed. Misunderstanding the value of one-third, customers believed they
were being overcharged. Why, they asked the researchers, should they pay
the same amount for a third of a pound of meat as they did for a quarter-
pound of meat at McDonald’s? The “4” in “1/4,” larger than the “3” in
“1/3,” led them astray. But is this depressing tale true? For verification of
this bizarre story, refer to the 2007 memoir of real estate tycoon A. Alfred
Taubman, who purchased the A & W chain back in the early 1980s. The
author of a New York Times piece on the matter—which is adapted from her
new book, Building a Better Teacher—cited it as her source on Twitter.
Taubman reports as follows. “Of course, not all my creative efforts to
redefine and reenergize A & W were successful. In fact, one experience in
particular still leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. We were aggressively
marketing a one-third-pound hamburger for the same price as a McDonald’s
Quarter Pounder. But despite our best efforts, including first-rate TV and
radio promotional spots, they just weren’t selling. Perplexed, we called in
the renowned market research firm Yankelovich, Skelly, and White to conduct
focus groups and competitive taste tests. Well, it turned out that customers
preferred the taste of our fresh beef over traditional fast-food hockey pucks.
Hands down, we had a better product. But there was a serious problem.
More than half of the participants in the Yankelovich focus groups questioned
the price of our burger.” “Why,” they asked, “should we pay the same
amount for a third of a pound of meat as we do for a quarter-pound of meat
at McDonald’s? You’re overcharging us.” Honestly. People thought a third
of a pound was less than a quarter of a pound. After all, 3 is less than 4!
Several years ago, when gasoline was more than $4 per gallon, one station
in the Midwest started selling gasoline by the liter for $1.25. People just
flocked to the station, and were happy as clams to be getting gas for just
$1.25. When a TV station interviewed the customers and asked them whether
they realized that they were only getting a liter, or just over 1/4 of a gallon,

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2.2. HOW TO SWINDLE ON THE STOCK MARKET 7

for $1.25, the customers were perplexed. A typical reply was, “I don’t care
what units they are using to sell us the gas. It’s only $1.25!!!”
As we have noted elsewhere, much of life is mathematical. It is worth-
while to understand a little mathematics so that we can convince ourselves
that we know what we are doing.

Exercise: Part of this phenomenon is psychological. People are familiar

with the concept of 1/2 pound. They know that 1/2 pound is less than
1 = 1/1 pounds. But they are much less familiar with 1/3 pound and 1/4
pound. Imagine that you are a schoolteacher. How would you explain these
concepts to your students? How would you make them understand that 1/4
is less than 1/3?

2.2 How to Swindle on the Stock Market

For the most part, if you want to succeed on the stock market, then you have
to know a lot about different commodities and you have to understand how
things are traded. But there are certain tricks.
Imagine that you wake up one morning and you receive a letter (or per-
haps an email) from some stock guy in New York City. It says

I know a lot about the stock market. I know when it will go

up and when it will go down. For instance, next Wednesday,
International Xolotl will go up.

You don’t think too much about it. But, sure enough, you check the stock
market next Wednesday and International Xolotl has gone up. Kowabunga.
A few days later you receive another letter or email from this same guy
that claims that, the following Tuesday, National Potrzebie will go down.
Getting ever more curious, you check the stock market next Tuesday and,
sure enough, National Potrzebie has gone down. Something must be going
on here.
You get four more communications from this New York fellow, one per
week. And each time he makes a prediction about the stock market. And
each time he is right.

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8 CHAPTER 2. DIVERSE MATHEMATICAL THOUGHTS

How could this be? This guy must have the stock market sewn up. He
must have the whole situation wrapped around his little finger. But then the
plot thickens.
In the seventh week he sends you a letter or email saying

OK. Now you know what I can do. So now I am going to sell you
my next prediction for $5,000.

Well, $5,000 is a lot of money. But this guy is infallible. How can any-
thing go wrong? You pay him $5,000 and invest $20,000 on whatever he
recommends (play the bull market if he predicts the stock market will go up
and play the bear market if he predicts the stock will go down) and you are
bound to come out a winner. There is practically no risk. It certainly beats
playing the roulette wheel in Vegas (but see Section 7.3). So you send him
the $5,000 and play the stock that he recommends and what happens?
Who knows? He certainly doesn’t care, and you will never hear from him
again. But he got $5,000 from you and from several other suckers as well.
So he made out like a bandit. What is going on here?
What is interesting is that you played the game straight from beginning
to end. You made no logical input into the game. You only observed and
reacted in a logical way. And the guy sending you the prescient messages
was also playing it straight. The scam is that you did not realize what you
were reacting to.
The way that the New Yorker played the game is this. In the first week
he wrote to 640 people. He told half of them that International Xolotl would
go up. And he told half of them that International Xolotl would go down.
Then he watched the board to determine what International Xolotl actually
did. Let us say that it went up. So he discards the 320 names to whom he
predicted that it would go down. And concentrates on the remaining 320 to
whom he would predicted it would go up. Because they are now the believers.
Now, in the next week, he writes to 160 of the remaining suckers and tells
them that National Potrzebie will go up. And he writes to the other 160 and
tells them that it will go down. With half of those he will be right. He keeps
those 160 and discards the others.
So now it is the third week and he is working with 160 marks. He tells
half of them that some stock will go up and half that it will go down. So,

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2.3. THE BIBLE CODE 9

going into the fourth week, he has 80 saps on the towline.

In the fourth week he plays the game again and whittles his crew down
to 40.
In the fifth week he pares the group down to 20.
And, after six weeks, he has 10 true believers who, checkbooks in hand,
are each ready to fork over $5,000 for the big kill.
At that point Mr. New York does not really care what prediction he
sends to these 10 targets. He has his $50,000 and he is out of here. Has he
done anything illegal? Well, certainly he has committed some kind of fraud,
but it would be quite difficult to prosecute. For how is what he did much
different from what your stockbroker does on a daily basis?

Exercise: Imitate the scheme described in this section to come up with a

scheme for predicting what grades a particular student will get on his/her
next report card.

2.3 The Bible Code

In 1998, Michael Drosnin published a book called The Bible Code [DRO1].
In this book, he claims that there are certain messages hidden in the text of
the Old Testament of the Bible. One can reveal these messages by looking
at equally spaced letters in the text (such an item is commonly referred to
as an ELS, or equidistant letter sequence). Using this technique, people have
found the word “Torah” encoded in the Bible. They have also found the
longer message

Destruction I will call you; cursed is Bin Laden and revenge is to

the Messiah.

One should keep in mind that the Old Testament of the Bible was orig-
inally written in Hebrew. Hebrew of course uses a different alphabet from
the Roman alphabet that we use. It is also written from right to left instead
of left to right. So any version of the Bible that we may read will be a trans-
lation, and there are many of those. Hardcore proponents of the Bible code

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