Numbered Possibilities: Chaucer and the Evolution of Late-Medieval Mathematics.

Author / Editor
Baker, David.

Title
Numbered Possibilities: Chaucer and the Evolution of Late-Medieval Mathematics.

Published
Robert Tubbs, Alice Jenkins, and Nina Engelhardt, eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Mathematics (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), pp. 23-40.

Description
Exemplifies how Chaucer "has a great deal of fun with the coalescence of medieval arithmetic, geometry and logic into a single discipline more recognizable today as mathematics," exploring the "proto-probabilistic" dicing and poison-bottle selection of PardT; the "ars-metrick" divisibility of the farthing / farting/parting pun and possible links with the pseudo-Alcuin "Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenas" in SumT; and a range of allusions to logic, mathematics, and physics in TC, including “dulcarnon,” “sliding,” and Ralph Strode.

Contributor
Tubbs, Robert, ed.
Jenkins, Alice Jenkins, ed.
Engelhardt, Nina, ed.

Alternative Title
Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Mathematics

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism
Pardoner and His Tale
Summoner and His Tale
Troilus and Criseyde
Language and Word Studies