Whensday: Mathematics, Politics and Moby Dick

Today (November 20) is someone’s birthday. I do not have any friends or acquaintances with a birthday, but history tells me that two interesting people were born on this day. The first is Belgian lawyer Victor D’Hondt in 1841. He was a lawyer at the University of Ghent in the 19th century and discovered a method for distributing seats in parliament in a proportional manner. Some would say he rediscovered it, as a similar method had also been presented by Thomas Jefferson at the end of the 18th century. The D’Hondt method helps to apportion votes in a fair manner and is used by countries around the world, including Belgium and the Netherlands. If you know anything about the complexity of Belgian politics and political parties, you will understand the importance of this method. 

In the Netherlands Willem Jacob van Stockum was born on this day in 1910. He was a mathematician who worked on the general theory of relativity. He died as a bomber pilot in fighting at the end of WWII. But his discovery of CTC’s (Closed Timeline Curves) showed that the possibility of traveling back in time might be possible. Just what some might want to do considering certain outcomes of voting in years past or present or the results of some wars. 

But on this day in 1820 (after Thomas Jefferson had figured out his method but before Victor D’Hondt had rediscovered it) a sperm whale attacked and sunk a whaling ship from Massachusetts. This became the basis of one of my favorite books from Herman Melville called “Moby Dick”. And anyone can travel back in time to this period, even today, simply by picking up the book and reading the story.