LIHU‘E — “Alice in Wonderland” became a favorite among many soon after its release.
It may have been because of its fantastically vivid “Wonderland” or its twists on logic that made it appealing for the young and old.
It was published in 1865 by Charles Dodgson, a math tutor at Christ Church, Oxford. He is better known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll.
Ever since its print there have been many ways to interpret it.
Some believe that Dodgson was influenced by his supposed use of psychedelics — thought because of Alice eating mushrooms and then hallucinating.
Perhaps the more suggestive scene of the caterpillar smoking the hookah atop a mushroom prompted the initial psychedelic interpretation.
Then again these are only some of the many interpretations possible, and it was these possibilities that made Dodgson such a notable writer.
My favorite interpretation is based on mathematics. I recently read about in The New York Times.
Now as Dodgson was a math tutor, it is said that he incorporated many mathematical concepts into “Alice in Wonderland.”
During his time there were advances in his field that didn’t follow logic, thus leading to his confusion. One advance in math allowed taking the square root of a negative number, which seems illogical because every single number — multiplied by itself — must equal a positive number.
This nonsensical idea was symbolized by Alice’s interactions with the caterpillar towards the beginning of the story.
Even the caterpillar smoking a hookah on the mushroom was symbolic of the absurd mathematical advances which seemed to mushroom “up from nowhere, and (dull) the thoughts of its followers.”
Also, Alice laments of changing sizes too much in one day while in Wonderland. This can be interpreted as the instinctively illogical world of algebra, where one can be a term, but also varies.
Although Dodgson never stated what “Alice in Wonderland” truly meant, he left a legacy that has been constantly enjoyed by all — with “Alice in Wonderland” never being out of production.
Hopefully what made this legacy an everlasting story was his inspiration from math.
• This original article can be found at www.nytimes.com under “Algebra in Wonderland.” It was written by Melanie Bayley and published on March 6.
