Matt from Olin College emailed us and said that the stuff in the book about unexpectedness — keeping people enthralled in your topic through mysteries and curiosity gaps — reminded him of an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. (Sorry, couldn’t find a link to the pic)
CALVIN: “I’m not going to do my math homework. Look at these unsolved problems. Here’s a number in mortal combat with another. One of them is going to get subtracted. But why? What will be left of him? If I answered these, it would kill the suspense. It would resolve the conflict and turn intriguing possibilities into boring old facts.”
HOBBES: “I never really thought about the literary possibilities of math.”
CALVIN: “I prefer to savor the mystery.”
