ABSTRACT
When I talk to my students about the great mathematicians of the past, one difficulty that always appears is the idea of greatness. They believe that I, as their teacher, know all the maths there is to know, so when I tell them that compared with Joseph-Louis Lagrange my mathematical ability is the same as that of a 3-year-old who can just about count to ten, and has little understanding about what it means to count, let alone any idea of place value, they look slightly puzzled. I tell them that if Lagrange had been an athlete he would have run the 100 m in 3 seconds flat. ‘No one can do that/they reply. ‘Yes, that’s what I mean. You think that it is impossible, but when Lagrange put his ideas down on paper the whole of the mathematics community of the time just said “We did not think it was possible”.’ The great French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736–1813) https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315069555/5d5201a7-70ac-4d14-a96d-80b2cf916e2e/content/fig0046.jpg"/>
