One of my favorite books is the Oulipo inspired book 99 variations on a proof by Philip Ording. The main character of the book is the cubic polynomial p(x) = x3 - 6x2 + 9x - 4. In each of the 99 chapters of the book, Ording shows that the roots of p are λ = 1 and λ = 4. I was particularly caught by the geometric construction in proof 60 - a construction devised by the Austrian engineer Eduard Lill in 1867. Read more...
