A binary dedication to “Old” Sir 01010010 01101111 01110111 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100100
…after 111010001 years…
…(which proves that there are only 10 kinds of people:
(a) those who don’t understand binary, and
(b) those who are wondering why Old Sir Rowland “talks in maths” [again!]).
It is often said that history rhymes, but sometimes it calculates, plots geometries, and converses across the centuries in unexpected ways…
We have experienced a delightfully peculiar week here at Soulton Hall, starting with a gift that via the hands of the mathematician and communicator Matt Parker: a copy of his acclaimed book, Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension.
The volume features a kind dedication written directly to Old Sir Rowland, with the inscription cleverly encoded in binary!
‘Old Sir Rowland’: Publisher of the Geneva Bible and insiration for AS YOU LIKE IT
It is a marvellous artifact to add to the house, joining our ongoing fascination with the hidden numbers and geometric proportions embedded in the fabric of Soulton.
Matt Parker’s book explores the mind-bending complexities of the fourth dimension, offering readers practical ways to visualize and build mathematical concepts that stretch far beyond our everyday three-dimensional reality.
Synchronicity on the Airwaves
The arrival of the book felt uncannily synchronized.
This very week, The Rest is History podcast broadcast its special Soulton episode, diving deep into the Tudor architecture, secret history, and the enigmatic mind of Sir Rowland Hill.
During the broadcast, the conversation ventured into the intricate geometries of Plato, the fifth element, and how specific shapes behave when projected into four-dimensional space:
Tim Ashton: …And y-you mentioned Plato.
The shape of the rhombic dodecahedron is what the research we’re doing [with Byrga Geniht] at the moment holds is the fifth element in the Timaeus.
[A rhombic dodecahedron] does actually perfect if you send it into 4 dimensional space…
Tom Holland: So it is clearly incredibly complicated building that embodies all kinds of rich renaissance ideals…
….
Tim Ashton: The explaining of the codes takes quite a lot of work, so we do do heritage tours. At the moment they’re offered once a month.
They sell out consistently.
They take two hours.
Uh, expect no prisoners to be taken: you will have to know about Shakespeare and Plato and, uh, four-dimensional space by the end of it.
Tom Holland: A lot of maths!!
Tim Ashton: Yeah, there is maths, right!!
Tom Holland: A lot of maths.!!
I remember you trying to explain to me and my brain just going into spasm.
In fact, if you are patient the maths is not THAT hard and it is beautiful! It has been observed within the household team that the way Soulton talks in maths is wonderfully resonant of that famous Radiohead lyric from “Karma Police”:
Karma Police, arrest this man,
He talks in maths,
He buzzes like a fridge,
He’s like a detuned radio.
Centuries ago, figures like Sir Rowland Hill were engaged in that exact same mental landscape: fascinated by recreational mathematics, codes, ratios, and philosophy.
A House That Speaks Mathematics
It is perhaps fitting that mathematical books and minds find their way here, given that centuries ago, another notable Matthew Parker—the future Archbishop of Canterbury—was likely secreted away at Soulton during the dangerous political shifts of the 1550s. Navigating turbulent eras required careful plotting, intellectual agility, and perhaps more than a passing acquaintance with hidden spaces and ciphered texts.
Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension by Matt Parker– “Shows off maths at its most playful and multifarious, ranging from classics like knot theory and ruler-and-compass constructions to more whimsical topics like the topology of beer logos and error-correcting scarves”
Whether it is the hidden geometric layout linking the hall to older traditions, the structural puzzles embedded in its thick walls, or a modern mathematician sending a binary-encoded nod to a sixteenth-century polymath across time, Soulton continues to prove that it is a place where history and mathematics are intimately intertwined.
We have no doubt that Old Sir Rowland would have thoroughly enjoyed sitting down with Matt Parker’s book, perhaps pencil and paper in hand, ready to test out the topology, build a four-dimensional cube, or decode the numbers within.
As for our own bookshelf? It has just grown a dimension richer.
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- A two-dimensional shadow cast by the frame of a tesseract.
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- In geometry, a tesseract or 4-cube is a four-dimensional hypercube, analogous to a two-dimensional square and a three-dimensional cube
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- Stereoscopic 3D Disarmed Hypercube
