Cones, Hats & The Unhirsute

Kim Mitchell

With Leibnitz and Newton’s concept of the infinitesimal which ushered in the calculus the problem of Achilles never being able to overtake the hare became moot. Zeno knew all along and posed his paradox to flummox us.

At what point does the continuous slicing of a cone change from a small circle disc with an area to become a geometric point? The answer would be the same as when does a man become bald?

Author Jonathan Raban told me that the quickest cure for a bald man was a hat. He always wore a hat to prove the point. While having now lived in Seattle for some years, Raban has not lost his English sense of manners. He would not have approved as I likewise did not in spotting at Wednesday’s opening performance of 2 Pianos 4 Hands at the Stanley at least two men who wore hats. One young man wore a cap. An older man wore an Indiana Jones hat, a large Indiana Jones hat. He wore glasses and I made a bet with my daughter that he would not take it off once the show started. I lost my bet. I thought that by wearing a hat he stood out in the crowd and I was thinking that he was bald and I was wondering if he would be completely bald or a small circle almost at the top of that cone.

Nick Muni - opera director
Photo Illustration Juan Mauel Sánchez
Alex W-H

Here are four photographs of four bald men. One of them, Kim Mitchell was not when he faced my camera. I told my daughter Hilary at the theatre, “If I were bald I would never wear a hat to hide the fact.” I wonder. But then I have never been able to wear a hat as I have that terrible vestigial feeling that it is still there and an itch when I take it off.
















Jonathan Raban

 

Tim Bray - Googleoid