MICHAEL
Bio-mathematicians. Third years. Fellow adults. Those who have given up growing marijuana and now grow beards, consult IFAs and spend your student loans on buy-to-let mortgages. You no longer drink on a Monday night and prefer a Soy Chai Latte and a flick through The Independent. I think you’re ready for a challenge. (Beat.) Derivations, anyone? What’s that doing up there? Where did it come from? Deleterious – just a poncey word for harmful. Can also mean subversive. Ploidy – possibly the best word in the English language – just means the number of sets of chromosomes in a biological cell. From it we get the haploid number, n, and the monoploid number, x. Who can tell me about x = n = 23? What does it express? Is it an energy drink? A new bar on the south side? Anyone?
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x = n = 23 = Man or to give us our post 19th-century title, the human being. Now, you’ll have realised by now that you have to do an awful lot of maths before you get to the sexy stuff but d’you know what, I think we’ve arrived. We’re in the mathematic bedroom. And we’re finally rid of the bimbos, the dimbos, the Oxbridge rejects, the trust fund timewasters, the far-too-pissed-even-by-academic-standards. The am drams, the unplanned prams, the random woman who changed to nursery nursing, the guy with the gun, that girl, Jennifer, who had all those accidents in the first year – god rest her soul – and of course the dearly deported. Because although education might seem like a good way to escape a life of poverty and persecution, the fees can be a bit prohibitive. Anyway, it’s time for me to share what is unquestionably the most important principle in the field of mathematical probability. Sadly, it can also be a little depressing. It’s the reason that several of you have to do re-sits. It’s why I’ve just taken rather a lot of time off work to recover from the shock of arriving home one evening and finding someone who wasn’t supposed to be in my bedroom, in my bedroom – And I don’t mean a burglar. I mean an additional person to Adam was there. I mean Adam was shagging someone else. In my bed. I mean shit happens. Or haploids, as we might say when speaking in terms of chromosomes. That’s a little bio-mathematic joke for you. Because shit happens we can try to work out when, why and how shit doesn’t happen. We can take the shit, and make something out of it. (Beat.) Does anybody have any questions? (Beat.) I do. I want to know why. I’m not doing all this maths for the fun of it. I’m not Carol Vorderman. Of course you’ll have heard me quote, many times, The Count from Sesame Street, with the words ‘Ha, ha, ha, I love counting!’ But things have happened lately that mean I can’t say that. I just can’t. (Pause.) For this, and various other reasons, I have initiated a research project to discover why my x = n = 23 human being was a cheat. I want to find a way of steering clear of mutated relationships in the future. Obviously the University of Manchester won’t be funding this particular study which is why, I’m afraid, I’m leaving the faculty. You will have a shiny new lecturer from Monday, who isn’t falling apart at the seams. (Beat.) Now, I feel like I’m breaking up with you. I suppose I am. (Grabbing his briefcase.) I’m no good at goodbyes. Good luck.