The Mystery of the Dead Professor
Mathematics concepts selected by Gilbert Fuhr
Story written by Dawn Chappell
The Professor
The professor was not nearly as old as eccentrics usually are; in fact, I would venture to guess his age at
40. Yet, by all accounts, he was odd beyond his years. If he had been a man who visited doctors, he might
have been assigned some diagnosis––obsessive compulsive, bipolar, antisocial, personality disorder. But, the
only appointments he kept were with archeologists, mathematicians, historians, and other mad scholars akin to
him. As a result, he was never diagnosed with anything. Until yesterday…when the medical examiner
declared him the victim of homicide.
Found alone in his apartment with a single stab wound, the professor had bled to death slowly. The police
detective admitted she was baffled by the evidence––more accurately, by the lack of evidence. No murder weapon.
Nothing damaged or broken. Valuable antiques left behind. Even the professor’s wallet remained undisturbed in
the pocket of his tweed blazer.
The detective knocked on my door as a matter of course, routine questioning of all neighbors. “Did you
know the victim?”
“We’ve both lived in the building for quite some time. I moved here seven years ago, and the professor was
already in 212.”
She pressed on with her practiced inquiry, “And did you notice anything unusual around the time of the
murder?”
“No, nothing at all.”
The detective wasted a few minutes asking me essentially the same question several ways, always receiving
from me the same answer, “No, I really didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.”
She changed the direction of her inquisition. “What can you tell me about the professor’s life? His work?
Would he have angered anyone?”
Here, I could be minimally more helpful. Trying to sound cooperative, I answered the detective, “The
professor’s life IS his work, but it couldn’t have possibly bothered anybody. The man is completely obsessed with
ancient Mesopotamian math. The old goat tells – sorry, told – anyone who will listen about the great Babylonian
achievements in mathematics centuries before the Greeks. He’ll go on for hours about this tablet or that formula.
That’s probably why he doesn’t get much company. Strange fellow, I think he writes his journals in cuneiform.
Certainly nothing worth murdering anyone about. At least not in this millennium.”
“Someone apparently disagreed with you,” replied the detective dryly, “because this homicide does indeed
seem very much mathematical.”
As she brandished a slip of paper, my first thought was that the murderer would live to regret fleeing
before the professor’s life and breath had completely fled. Waving the ominous flag, the detective affirmed that the
professor’s last act of heroic strength was to write, with his own dripping blood, the following clue:
42 40 27
71 35 37
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Clues from a Corpse
“Any idea what this means?” asked the detective.
I was fairly confident I did indeed know the meaning of the numbers. And I was not about to share my knowledge.
“Nope,” I innocently replied. “Hmm. Let me copy that down and if I figure it out, I’ll call you.”
An hour later, I was holding a GPS in the glaring sun on the baseball field of Nissitissit Middle School.
These are the right coordinates, I thought to myself, North 42º 40’ 37” latitude and West 71º 35’ 37” but certainly
this gave me neither the identity nor the intent of the murderer. The professor must have planted something here,
unless those numbers mean something else entirely? Deciding to leave no stone unturned, as they say, I started
brushing at the dirt. Oh, of course! A quick tug at the pitcher’s mound and my search was rewarded. Inside a
plastic bag the professor had left an eerie note:
Friend, if you are reading this, then I am dead. Please guard the secrets you find.
They are more   with every passing day.
The note was smudged and dirty, but it had been placed rather recently. On the back was another set of
coordinates, which I set out quickly to locate. Intent on reaching the second location, I nearly missed the next clue.
Buried in the dirt at the edge of the baseball diamond was a strange engraved tablet. Instantly, I recognized that it
was ancient cuneiform, and in the same instant, I became aware that anyone possessing this tablet was in grave
danger.
Back in my apartment, I struggled through an internal conflict with my conscience. The professor was my
neighbor, killed over some secret so important that he died rather than reveal it, so dangerous that he prepared for
his possible murder by planting clues in anticipation of his death. The police, last I heard, were looking all over
town for a post office box or a locker. They thought the top number would be the box number and the bottom was
a lock combination. For one split second, I thought about taking the tablet directly to the detective. No. Coming
forward now would undoubtedly put my life in peril. I mustered my willpower and resolved to follow the clues
myself.
I struggled to remember the professor’s obsessive rantings. What had he said about cuneiform tablets? So
much that I started tuning him out long ago. When we first met, I halfway listened, just enough to be polite. Over
the past couple years, I suddenly realized with regret, I had seldom even pretended to pay attention to him.
There were a few bits and pieces I recalled as recurring elements of his fixation. “The beauty of
Mesopotamian mathematics!” the professor would often exclaim passionately. I stopped listening after hearing
“beauty” and “math” in the same sentence. But now, with new interest, I realized my first task would be
deciphering this tablet.
Another frequent topic was the Pythagorean Theorem. The professor used to complain that Pythagoras
did not deserve his name on the Theorem, that the proper nomenclature would be Babylonian or Mesopotamian
Theorem. But I could not remember the details… or even, I was ashamed to admit, what the Pythagorean Theorem
meant. I would certainly need to fill in the blanks.
I thought that theorem had something to do with angles, which led me to a distinct memory of another
neighbor’s holiday pot-luck party. Everyone showed up with food, but the professor brought these little bits of
abstract art made of toothpicks and gumdrops. Maybe they were festive, but they weren’t exactly a platter of
appetizers. As the guests expressed their bewilderment (and hunger) the professor became highly emotional and
started scolding, “What is wrong with you people? Haven’t you ever seen a geodesic dome before?” When one
woman tried to appease him by disassembling the contraption and eating a gumdrop, the professor just yelled at her
about Buckminster Fuller and apothems. Recalling the crazed fervor about geodesic domes and apothems, I made
a mental note to look for where they might fit in to this mystery.
Another word came up at that same party. Well, not at the party, exactly. While the professor was in the
corridor talking the ear off of some poor soul, he wrote a word on the wall to demonstrate its spelling for the
unfortunate listener. I trotted down the hall to see if maybe…Yes! Not your typical graffiti, and no one ever
bothered to remove it: harpedonaptae.
Looking back over the past few months, in hindsight I acknowledged that the professor had been more and
more reclusive, rarely venturing out except for his regular visits to Columbia University. Just to be polite in the
elevator, I once asked him what he studied over at the university. “Plimpton 322” he replied, as if that were a
household term. Apparently I must have looked ignorant because he reprimanded me for my lack of archeological
knowledge. I crankily informed him that not everyone chooses to spend his time on boring ancient math minutiae.
“Boring!” he exploded furiously. “Plimpton 322 came directly from Edgar James Banks himself!”
Just to be obstinate, my sardonic reply was, “Yeah, so?”
“Edgar James Banks was the American consul in Baghdad in 1898 and the ultimate antiques enthusiast and
is the real-life inspiration for the character Indiana Jones! Certainly not boring!”
At that moment, the elevator opened, and the conversation was over. I did not give it another passing
thought until just now. Plimpton 322…what on earth is that?
I was more determined than ever to solve the puzzle of the crazed professor's clues. These pieces fit
together, I was sure. But how?
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The search for answers
With my research done, I had all of the pieces of the professor’s puzzle. Now I would need to put those
pieces together. I stared at the tablet. Why would he put the tablet in a ball field anyway? There must be some
connection.
The triples on the tablet must correspond to a triangle on the field! Suddenly, I recalled that the professor’s
favorite number was three. The third line of the tablet and the third base line! But what was the unit of
measurement? Of course! Harpedonaptae! I grabbed my rope and the tablet and headed back to the baseball
diamond. Standing on home plate, I looked at third base and wished I had two other people to hold the rope.
____________________________________________________________________________
Soon I had found my next clue: a set of ancient scrolls. I could tell the scrolls were coded coordinates, but
now this was getting complicated. First, I needed to decipher the code. Then, I would have to graph the plane of
the Nissitissit ball field to figure out the locations of these coordinates.
I graphed each set of coordinates and drew lines on the plane. Then I went out to the field to see what might
lie on each line. The treasure I found was gratifying, but what really interested me were the puzzle pieces. Finally,
the mystery of the dead professor would be solved!
When I put together the puzzle, the note I found read
Congratulations, friend, you have solved the mystery!
As you know, I have been studying the Plimpton 322 tablet at
Columbia University. In my research, I found that the tablet Edgar
Banks sold to Plimpton was, in fact, a fake! But, the tablet was not
entirely a hoax: there is an ancient Babylonian tablet proving that the
Mesopotamians knew the Pythagorean Theorem centuries before
Pythagoras lived. It had been well-hidden by Banks; whether he hid
it to protect its location or to sell it later for profit, I do not know.
My research partner, Professor Williamson, and I devoted
ourselves to finding the true tablet. Finally, we found it hidden away
in the Middle East, buried in the backyard of a house once owned by
Banks. Williamson wanted to secretly sell the true tablet on the
black market and pocket the money. But I disagreed with her,
believing that history should not be bought and sold for individual gain.
I suspected that my partner planned to kill me and take the tablet
for herself, so I prepared this scavenger hunt to be solved in the event
of my demise. Since I am dead, you must take on the search. Now
that you have learned the truth, it is up to you to find Professor
Williamson and the true tablet.
Good luck, my friend.