IT is pretty obvious that 'Realistic teacher' (SUM August 27) has never really left school. So he has never had a chance to really learn. Then it does take a long time to recover from a 'formal academic education'.

I was in my fifties before the penny really dropped. That it that the teachings I had suffered in the application of mathematics to science is worse than useless. The main point is that this is taught as if the earth is at rest in space and does not even rotate. So only the practised education I had at school and college was really of any use.

Investigation where the supposedly clever mathematicians have slipped up is a fascinating study. It is about 20 years since I realised that the 3.1415926536... value as a factor for the radius of a circle for half way round was too low, and the true value must be root 10 as 3.16227766..., but it is only recently that I have discovered that the Ancient Egyptians got it right and by 2000 BC at the latest. Then I feel I can now explain this simple enough for 14 year olds to understand.

If 'realistic teacher' is what he claims to be, he ought to want to know if my claim is really true. So I will gladly let him have a copy of my argument to see if this can get through to him. It was sent to the Prime Minister in a more complicated form, over a year ago, and I have been informed that it is now on file in the Department for Education and Employment, for use in the forthcoming revision of the National Curriculum. But I have now made it so simple that I think even MPs may be able to understand the argument.

George Woodhouse, Flixton

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.