HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LEWIS CARROLL - CELEBRATING THE ALICE BOOKS WITH A MAD TEA PARTY!

"Take some more tea," the March Hare said to  Alice, very earnestly.

"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more."

"You mean you can't take LESS," said the Hatter: "it's very easy to take MORE than nothing."

"Nobody asked YOUR opinion," said Alice.

"Who's making personal remarks now?" the Hatter asked triumphantly.

Illustration by M.L. Kirk

"Who are YOU?" said the Caterpillar.This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, "I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."                                       

"Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin," thought Alice;"but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!"

Disney's Animation.

The White Rabbit shop

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. "Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked.
"Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."

"Let's pretend that you're the Red Queen, Kitty! Do you know, I think if you sat up and folded your arms, you'd look exactly like her. Now do try, there's a dear!" And Alice got the Red Queen off the table, and set it up before the kitten as a model for it to imitate: however, the thing didn't succeed, principally, Alice said, because the kitten wouldn't fold its arms properly. So, to punish it, she held it up to the Looking-glass, that it might see how sulky it was -- "and if you're not good directly," she added, "I'll put you through into Looking-glass House. How would you like that?"

"Alice and Chessie"
The Fairies' Nest

"Your majesty shouldn't purr so loud," Alice said, rubbing her eyes, and addressing the kitten, respectfully, yet with some severity. "You woke me out of oh! such a nice dream! And you've been along with me, Kitty -- all through the Looking-Glass world. Did you know it, dear?"


I hope you enjoyed my Mad Hatter Tea Party!  If you're one of the first 6 people to leave a comment (excluding mine of course) by then end of  today, 1-27-11 - I'll send you a little package of Disney Wonderland Teabags ... just enough for your own tea party.


Click Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to see the broad range of choices for these books from Amazon. (You can arrange them by age.)

"CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER": AUTHOR LEWIS CARROLL

Born: January 27, 1832
Died: January 14, 1898

Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Dodgson invented his pen name by translating his first two names into the Latin "Carolus Lodovicus" and then anglicizing it into "Lewis Carroll")  Besides being the author of the "Alice" books, he was a Victorian-era logician and mathematics tutor at Christ Church, Oxford (you'll see how that comes into play in a minute).
  

Disney's Alice

Because of the popularity of the Disney movie, many people don't realize there are two Alice books and that neither of them is titled "Alice in Wonderland". The first book (published in 1865) was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and has an undeniable card deck theme - with "The Queen of Hearts" being a dominant character. The second book, titled Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, (published in 1872), switched to a chess theme - where two Queens, Red and White, appear.

Anyway, back to the math:  I recently came across a fascinating article written by Melanie Bayley for New Scientist about the curious mathematical aspects of the Alice books.  She says that what many have assumed to merely be fantastic imaginary tales for children, were actually Dodgson's (Carroll's) attempts to parody the absurdities of mid-19th century's new abstract mathematics - "Wonderland's madness reflects Carroll's views on the dangers of the new symbolic algebra".


And in this nonsensical world, Carroll seems to make the Cheshire Cat the logical voice of traditional geometry:

"'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

'I don't much care where--' said Alice.

'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

'--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.

'Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough.'"

Speaking of nonsense, I can't even begin to understand ykcowrebbaJ!!!!!

Illustrations by John Tenniel (1820-1914/English)

Click here for some fun ideas in case you want to throw a MAD HATTER TEA PARTY to celebrate Lewis Carroll's birthday tomorrow!
(By the way, I just realized in re-reading Carroll's texts: that whole "un-birthday" thing doesn't take place at the famous Tea Party, but is rather a conversation that takes place between Alice and Humpty-Dumpty in the second book!  I guess I watched the Disney version too many times!  What misconceptions have you had?)