Ivory Tower= Ivory Soap

"Princeton's mock gothic architecture reminded [Alan Mathison] Turning very much of his day at Cambridge. However, if Cambridge embodied class, then Princeton bespoke wealth, a wealth totally unfamiliar to Turning. The clock tower of its graduate college was an imitation of the clock tower at Magdalen College Oxford. Students jokingly called it the "Ivory Tower," not because of the often ethereal intellectual activity if overlooked, but because it overlooked "Procter Hall," the graduate college's chief public room, built with a donation from William Cooper Procter, a founder of the American company Proctor & Gamble, the manufacturers of Ivory Soap!"

From page 1124: "God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs that Changed History," Edited, with commentary by Stephen Hawkins. [Running Press, 2005.] http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/runningpress/book_detail.jsp?isbn=0762419229 <http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/runningpress/book_detail.jsp?isbn=0762419229>

Alan Turing was the British mathematician who cracked the German enigma code.
Received on Sat, 6 May 2006 12:45:51 -0400