From Janet Gunn
When I read in Feedback (8 January) of a reader who was told that 2,147,483,646 people were ahead of him in a waiting list, it brought two questions to mind.
First, how many other New Scientist readers immediately recognised this number as 231 – 2? And secondly, of all the things I learned at graduate school, why is this the only one I can remember?
Nokesville, Virginia, US
