Sir

I was delighted to see that there is at last a new edition1 of Silvanus P. Thompson's beautiful classic Calculus Made Easy, first published in 1910. I bought this book as an undergraduate and have been recommending it ever since. But now it has been thoroughly modernized.

In the section “On different degrees of smallness”, for example, Thompson wrote “Again, think of a farthing compared with a sovereign”, but the revised edition reads “Again, think of a hundred dollars compared with a penny”. And later, “Now if Mr Millionaire received during next week £1,000, the secretary would receive £10 and the boy two shillings” has been clarified by transmutation to “Now if Mr Millionaire received during next week $1,000, the secretary would receive $10 and the boy 1 dime”.

Some of my carping colleagues have suggested that such changes amount to cultural imperialism. What nonsense! Although it is true that most of the British students for whom the book was originally written are unlikely to know what a dime is worth, this is easily remedied by adding an extra lecture to the course, followed by a test to make sure they know the values of nickels, dimes and quarters. This fine modernization has been properly acknowledged by the fact that the biographical notes of Thompson's editor, Martin Gardner, are longer than those of Thompson.

I hope that we may look forward soon to a properly modernized edition of Charles Dickens' works from Macmillan, in which Mr Micawber will say “Annual income $32, annual expenditure $31.96, result happiness. Annual income $32, annual expenditure $32.04, result misery”. And Oliver Goldsmith's Deserted Village could be brought up to date as “A man who was to all the country dear, And passing rich on sixty-four dollars a year”.

Computers should allow easy modernization of graphics. The price of the Mad Hatter's hat could be changed from an anachronistic 10/6d to an up to date 84 cents. Sadly, though, the modernization of The Merchant of Venice could pose insuperable problems, given the difficulty of determining the exchange rate of the ducat.